White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion) - Tapa blanda

"Via the sheep-farming landscapes of today's Wales and the Blitz-hit London of the 1940s, [this] novella dwells on . . . the cyclical nature of atrocity . . . in swift prose that slips between its periods and levels with gravity and grace." "Independent""

"Sheers makes his 20th-century setting sing but holds on to the otherworldliness of his source material . . . A spellbinding fable about male self-destructiveness and the effects of war on those who return home." "Financial Times""

"It is hard to take on the giants of the past without being felled by them, but Celyn Jones and Sheers have done justice to the Mabinogion, and to themselves." "The Times""

"The most intriguing aspect of Sheers' take on the myth is the official sanction of mythology, through a government 'investing in superstition.' The use of the bizarre raven mission is a typical authorial technique for Sheers, combining the ancient with the contemporary, the real with the imagined." "The Independent on Sunday (The New Review)""

"[The] core tale is framed by a gripping contemporary story [that] brilliantly absorbs the magical elements of the original." "Saturday Guardian""

"A gripping tale of the unexpected that fuses Welsh myth and modern macabre into a superb, bewitching whole." "Sunday Times""

"This unsettling, resonant and fantastically strange tale is impossible to pin down . . . the audacity of his vision is energizing, and his precise and elegant phrasing a joy." "Daily Mail""

"One of the strengths of Branwen is the matter-of-fact exposition of the most appalling atrocities, and Sheers has wisely chosen a similar understated style . . . and by using the device of the old man telling his story, he retains the essential nature of the medieval tale which would have been recited or read aloud." "The Planet""

Two stories, two different times, but the thread of an ancient tale runs through the lives of twenty-first century farmer's daughter Rhian and the mysterious Branwen ...
After being wounded in Italy, Matthew O'Connell is seeing out WWII in an obscure government department spreading rumours and myths to the enemy. But when he's given the bizarre task of escorting a box containing six raven chicks from a remote hill farm to the Tower of London, he becomes part of a story over which he seems to have no control.