Julie Foley is sixteen when she and her family are evicted from their humble mountain dwelling in the Mayo town of Attymass. Their crime is rental arrears. It's 1847 and the potato famine has impoverished Ireland. Corpses of men, women and children lie strewn across the ditches and fields, having dropped like flies from fever, exhaustion and starvation. Thanks to the generosity of the hedge schoolmaster and his wife, Julie and her family are given a lifesaving opportunity to emigrate to North America. But first they must survive the journey aboard one of the 'coffin ships' where thousands of their countrymen and women have perished before them.

Since childhood, Julie has yearned to become a teacher. Can Fionn McDonagh, the young Irish rebel and poet, persuade Julie to hold on to her dream despite the squalid conditions on board the 'Elizabeth and Sarah'? Will Julie's faith keep her dream alive when her family settle in the working-class district of Griffintown in Montreal, and the only chance of earning a shilling is working in domestic service? Can Julie's dream of a teaching career survive as she toils under the cruel eyes of her employer, a wealthy Northern Irish widow who owns a mansion on Mount Royal?

As a tiny flower can take root and thrive between concrete slabs, 'Hungry Trails' celebrates the resilience of the human condition.

Watch the book trailer for Hungry Trails here.

Want to read it in other formats?

Hungry Trails is also available on Kindle.

Máire Malone is a Dublin born and bred author and poet who began writing at an early age. When she moved to the UK as an adult she studied Arts and Psychology and followed a career in Counselling and Psychotherapy.

The first seed of 'Hungry Trails' was sown when a poem called 'Great People of the Irish Famine' was published in 'Vision On', an anthology of selected poetry judged by English poet, Katherine Pierpoint, in 2005. She has had poems and short stories that have won prizes. One story about the Irish Famine was shortlisted in 'Words and Women' Competition, 2018.

Máire's debut novel, 'The Dream Circle', was selected as a finalist in the Eyelands International Book Awards, 2019. 'Hungry Trails' is her second novel.

She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband.

Máire Malone’s novel, Hungry Trails, has been awarded 5 stars and the Highly Recommended award for excellence by the HFC. In their review they state: "Julie’s qualities of loyalty, resiliency, faith, compassion and bravery, are well fleshed out in her character…the narrative is especially well written and flows easily…"
– The Historical Fiction Company (Read the entire review on their website here)

From Kirkus Reviews:
Malone’s novel follows a 19th-century Irish family searching for a better life in Canada.

In August 1846, the Irish potato crop is black and diseased, and the stench of rotting vegetables permeates the air. Sixteen-year-old Julie Foley and her family are poverty-stricken, locked in a constant struggle against hunger, and life is about to get worse: Family friend Peader O’Donnell is forced to close his small school, which the Foley siblings have been attending. With their potato crop destroyed, Julie, her father, and her two brothers, Dermot and Cian, are forced into backbreaking work on a government road-building project. Starvation and despair plague the country. In March 1847, the family is evicted from their rented cottage. Peader and his wife, Sarah, offer several months of shelter and, in a spectacular act of friendship and generosity, present them with five tickets for passage to Canada. In July, the Foley family boards the ship Elizabeth and Sarah, bidding farewell to their homeland and taking their place among the hundreds packing the vessel’s steerage compartment, embarking on the arduous voyage across the Atlantic to Montreal. New opportunity awaits them as they set up their tiny home in Griffintown, Montreal’s immigrant section—but tragedy waits not far behind. Julie narrates the story, and it is through her meticulous descriptions of daily life, work, and family that the author captures the essence of the mid-19th-century immigrant’s fortitude and determination to overcome the odds and move forward in the New World. She flavors the narrative with sporadic Gaelic phrases… and verses from traditional Irish songs and poetry ("She is a rich and rare land / Oh! she’s a fresh and fair land / She is a dear and rare land – / This native land of mine”). She also nicely folds in pieces of Irish and Canadian history, the latter portrayed most dramatically when Julie and her employer, the formidable wealthy widow Mrs. McKinnon, scramble to aid the orphans displaced by an 1848 flood, which saw the St. Lawrence River overflow its banks and ravage Griffintown.

"A touching, atmospheric, and culturally rich family chronicle."
– Kirkus Reviews

"For those who love authentic Irish voices combined with priceless retellings of history, look no further than Máire Malone’s second novel, Hungry Trails, which follows one family’s vivid journey from Ireland to Montréal.

"All along, Malone does an exceptional job capturing the small joys that exist in the most difficult of times, and Julie’s relationship with Fionn is no exception. While sometimes the story is exceptionally hard to bear because of the tragic nature of what people like Julie endured, this budding romance offers readers a refreshing reprieve…

"Malone’s ability to immerse us in this poignant account of resiliency is amplified by countless period details and a dialect that is both approachable and readily believable. I expect for years to come, whenever I think of Ireland’s Great Potato Famine, I will remember Hungry Trails. I heartily recommend it."
– Susan Morris, Independent Book Reviews

See Máire in The Irish Post: Ten Minutes with novelist Máire Malone. Please click here.

Máire receives a 5 star review and award of excellence for Hungry Trails, awarded by Dee Marley at The Historical Fiction Company: https://youtu.be/n3W_DQXrgxY

July 2023: Hungry Trails is on the longlist for the CAP Awards! The CAP Awards (Carousel Aware Prize for Indies) aims to provide a platform to showcase the cream of Irish Self-Published authors, bringing them to the attention of book shops, distributors, and the media in Ireland and abroad, with all money raised going to the charity Aware.

February 2024: Hungry Trails has been selected as a Finalist in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2023.