When Isaac Williams retires he finds a new meaning to his life exploring his long forgotten great grandmother’s life. Her adventures affect him in the most unexpected ways. It is as if she creates a meaning and purpose for his retirement.
In Minnie Riordan: I wrote my will across the sky in stars you will find a story about a woman who broke the mould of nineteenth century women, and charted a path in the grand search for the place of human beings in the Universe. Minnie meets and holds her own among some of the ‘real’ and prominent men of her time.
Her life is enriched by a chance acquisition by her father, and she comes to blaze a trail among those women in late nineteenth century, who were breaking the conventional roles allotted to them. Surprisingly she found success in a man’s world
Minnie isn’t just a child of her time. She is at the forefront of change and hope for the future.
Minnie finds fulfilment in a way unimaginable for most women of the late nineteenth century, in a science that brings elation, happiness, as well as incredible discoveries.
Of the ‘real’ people she meets, all their actions and words are entirely fictitious and have no resemblance to their actual lives. I salute them all.
Dear reader, while this is a work of fiction, the many known places and real people Minnie inhabits and meets have induced me to include a list of further reading in case you would like to follow up investigating any of the events, places or people her contained. Finally, the illustrations are not meant to be a prompt to your imagination, but to illustrate Minnie’s long lost world.
For all who peer through the eyepiece of a telescope, may you too experience Minnie’s sense of elation at the wonders of our southern night sky through the eyepiece you will, I am sure, experience the same delight as Minnie.
