On Samhain night, with treachery seated beside the throne and the dead stirring beneath the House of Faces, Macha felt him at her back—steady, lethal, far too close. She was meant to hold Ulaid together, not crave the man sworn to protect her. But desire turned every choice into something dangerous.
Ruairi had already crossed death once. Macha was far more dangerous.
Macha stood before him with fire in her eyes while Ulaid cracked apart around her, and every vow he’d sworn strained toward breaking. He was her blade, her shield, the last thing standing between her and the darkness rising through the court. He was never meant to want her like this.
The dead had always spoken to Breda. She never expected them to speak his name.
As the House of Faces began to fracture, the whispers pulled her toward truths long buried within Ulaid—and toward a shadowed man who felt more like a warning than salvation. The dead were no longer content to whisper.
Cian lived with the damage he helped create—and the woman he could not save.
Old magic bound him to grief, guilt, and a past that refused to stay buried. Love had failed them before. It might fail them again.
As Samhain descends, loyalties fracture, the dead grow restless, and Ulaid begins to unravel.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cover Art: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I've enjoyed Hanna Park's books before, so this was always going to be one I picked up.
The thing that kept me turning the pages was the mystery. Every time I thought I had a handle on what was going on, something else would be revealed, and I needed to know more. There was always that feeling that something wasn't quite right beneath the surface.
I also loved the setting. Castle Rock has such a strong presence in the story that it almost felt like another character. The House of Faces was probably my favourite part of the entire book. Every scene involving it grabbed my attention.
Macha and Ruairi were easy characters to become invested in. I found myself rooting for them from quite early on, and I liked that the romance was given room to develop rather than being rushed.
The reason this ended up being a four-star read for me rather than a five-star one is simply that there were a few points where I felt I was missing something in the mythology. That's probably more down to me than the book. I suspect readers who are more familiar with Celtic folklore will get even more out of it than I did.
That said, I was never tempted to put the book down. In fact, I stayed up far later than I intended more than once because I kept telling myself I'd stop at the next chapter.
I began my writing career in the pre-dawn of a winter morning while my husband snored like a train. We could call my husband the catalyst. If it weren’t for him, I would never have gone to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, feed the cat, and sit on the loveseat in front of the fire. It was there, in those moments of wondrous quiet, that I did something I had never thought possible. I opened my laptop, and while the coffee went cold, I wrote a story. My husband had no idea that these sojourns to the loveseat in front of the fire would become a daily occurrence, that writing would become an obsession, but the cat knew. She knows everything.
I write stories that make you laugh, make you cry, and make you love. Thank you, friends, for reading!
In the beginning, there was an empty page.
I am a writer who lives in Muskoka, Canada, with a husband who snores, a hungry cat, and an almost perfect canine––he’s an adorable little shit.
Voices on the Wind (A Novel of Malta in WWII, Part I — Assault) By Helena P. Schrader
Publication Date: 11th June 2026
Publisher: Cross Seas Press
Pages: 448
Genre: Historical Fiction
Early 1942: the fate of the Suez Canal and access to Middle East oil hangs on the fate of an island just 17 miles long by 9 miles wide: Malta.
Determined to destroy the British forces threatening Rommel’s supply lines, the Axis powers drop more bombs on Malta than London endured throughout the Blitz. The population is forced underground, while the RAF struggles with inadequate resources to fend off defeat. Meanwhile, Britain’s Atlantic lifeline is fraying....
Voices on the Wind follows the fate of four of Malta’s defenders: Senior Intelligence Officer and former Battle of Britain ace, W/Cdr “Robin” Priestman; WAAF SigInt Officer Candice Weld, sent out from Bletchley Park to “man” the only X-machine outside the UK; F/O “Ned” Nettleton, a Beaufort torpedo bomber pilot engaged in suicidal attacks against enemy shipping; and Chief Officer Stevie Mackay of the British Merchant Navy, fighting to keep Britain’s own lines of supply open.
Praise
What emerges from these pages is more than a story of military operations. It is a portrait of service, endurance, and sacrifice viewed through multiple perspectives, each contributing to a richer understanding of a critical moment in history.
Yarde Book Promotions
Through a collective of narrators working in different areas of the war effort, mainly in and around Malta, "Voices on the Wind" by Helena P. Schrader explores a frequently overlooked aspect of history, delving into the defence of Malta during the Second World War.
Helena P. Schrader is the author of 21 historical novels and six non-fiction history books. She earned a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg and served as a U.S. diplomat in Europe and Africa. She has won numerous literary awards, and two of her titles—Cold Peace, the first book in the Bridge to Tomorrow series on the Berlin Airlift, and her Battle of Britain novel, Where Eagles Never Flew—achieved Amazon #1 Bestseller status in aviation and military historical fiction.
Schrader masterfully blends meticulous historical research with compelling storytelling. Her success can best be measured not by the many awards or positive reviews, but by the fact that witnesses of the history she describes praise the authenticity of her works. Battle of Britain ace, W/Cdr Bob Doe enthusiastically declared that Where Eagles Never Flew got it “smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots.” Traitors for the Sake of Humanity: A Novel of the German Resistance won recognition for its extraordinary sensitivity to a complex topic from the survivors of the military conspiracy against Hitler and the widows of some of those executed.
The dramatic siege of Malta in WWII attracted Schrader’s attention years ago, and she has visited the island several times to conduct research, visit the important sites, and gain a greater understanding of the people. As she became drawn deeper into the material, the temptation to combine a novel about the siege of Malta with another of her lifelong loves, the British Merchant Navy, became irresistible. Schrader has been an avid sailor all her life and served as a petty officer in the British Merchant Navy on sail training ships in her youth.
