Beneath the Cedar Tree

Unable to free themselves from a personal trauma six years past, one that has come back to haunt them due to an outrageous miscarriage of justice, Brendan and Irene Gogarty find themselves amongst a planeload of Holy Joes bound for Medjugorje. A pair of agnostics, most unlikely pilgrims, they’re taking a punt on divine deliverance. Medjugorje in 1995 is a spiritual shrine in the middle of a warzone, a ready-made getaway with Vegas-type odds on salvation, but the sacred hill does not deliver. Overcome with unrealistic hopes for some heavenly sign, Irene has a meltdown on Cross Mountain. Things will never be the same. The couple head for the coast and witness first-hand a country ravaged by conflict before they reach the azure calm of the Adriatic. Over lazy days in a fishing village the Gogartys begin to unwind. On a whim Brendan decides to buy an old cottage – dubbed the villa – as a gift for Irene. It is perfect except that it is occupied by the auctioneer’s pregnant cousin, Anja, and her severely war-damaged husband, Damir. The young Bosnian couple literally have nothing, yet it is the Gogartys who feel they have lost everything. Irene cannot accept Brendan’s offer of a fresh beginning, knowing it would result in her new friends becoming homeless, but now the Irish couple must face some hard truths about both their past and their future. In this unlikely setting in a faraway land, Brendan and Irene must reach deep into themselves and, under the shade of a cedar tree, find the means to cope with loss and discover the things that really matter . . .

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