Saba, a charismatic shaman gifted with amazing powers, is from a fisher tribe living in forested isolation around the great eel lake and northern coast of Ireland. She is rescued from a perilous attack and becomes the lover of Fion, the headstrong leader of a Bronze Age clan.

Inspired yet haunted by her partly Inuit ancestry, Saba incurs tribal jealousy and hatred. The dynamic which involves Saba, Fion and an exotic array of personalities in devastating conflicts for power and gender domination, is imbued with the primal psychic energy of a harsh and earthy age. If like them, we combine our outer and inner perceptions of a more than human world, the mysteries come alive as in dreaming, where the boundaries which surround the ‘self’ are dissolved.

This seminal epic of Old Europe spans the Newgrange and Maltese temple rituals, Akkadian, Kretan and Eastern cultures. Those who enjoyed Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series should find Saba’s Choices an enthralling read.

Haidee Belshaw was born in Northern Ireland and was educated by Quakers in Lisburn and at St Columba’s College Dublin. Subsequently he graduated in Mental and Moral Science at Trinity College Dublin and is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute London. He was also a founding co-director of Eurotek (Ireland) Ltd.

He has bred Aberdeen Angus cattle, hatched and farmed the native oyster in Ireland and Scotland and raised ornamental poultry; on the African birds, he wrote the only comprehensive book in existence, Guinea Fowl of the World.

He is married with six children, and has lived for many years in the Wicklow hills from where he and his wife worked and travelled extensively. Their chief interests lie in the natural world, human pre-history, psychology and mythology.
Saba’s Choices is a first novel, a joint effort, which appears in two parts: Mother Lake and Cosmic Leap.

Mother Lake (Saba’s Choices Book 1) by Haidee Belshaw is a well-written novel set in the north of Ireland during the Bronze Age. The book is most impressive with its feast of ancient mythology and features a large variety of cultures with their unique rituals, beliefs and ceremonies. Well explained and backed up with maps, a glossary and a long bibliography, the reader feels in safe and competent hands. I was in awe of the meticulous detail and impressive scene setting. See the full review here.
– Historical Novel Society

Download the Advance Information (AI) Sheet here.

Click here for a review of Mother Lake in Self Publishing magazine