Interesting Use of Foreshadowing

Use this forum to discuss the March 2020 Book of the month, "House of Eire" by June Gillam.
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Post by TopaAzul062 »

From California to Ireland, we follow a group of characters on a journey to experience, and learn new things. The story itself is pretty straight forward, yet there were subtle inclusions of foreshadowing included. What was interesting about this book, is that the scenes hinting toward a future event weren't noticed till much later when characters recalled past events.

Take Sarah for instance. Before they left, she made sure everything was squared away should something bad take place while on the trip. Fast-forward some days to Connemara where she invites a palm reader, Dukker, to tell her fortune.

Before the palm reader begins, she mentions fortune tellers from the reservation and said, "I've had 'em all. Now let's hear yours." Couldn't help but wonder, especially after the reading, if her past fortunes were similar to Dukker's. Hence, the arrangements made prior to the trip.

Did you notice any other foreshadow moments in the story? If so, which one(s) caught your attention?
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Post by mszn »

That's interesting! I didn't really catch the foreshadowing in her mentions of the previous fortune tellers, but I think you might be right! I thought the squaring everything away part was actually a little heavy-handed, but maybe that's just me? At first I thought it was just to highlight Sarah's age as compared to the rest of the characters, but then once I got to the end of part one, I just knew something bad was going to happen to her. It took away some of the shock value, in my opinion.

The Rapunzel-in-the-tower moment with Claire was definitely foreshadowed throughout with her doll, though. That one I didn't pick up on until the ending events were happening, though!
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Post by Brenda Creech »

WOW! I didn't even put any of that together! I just assumed Sarah was a very efficient person and that's why she had everything in order before the trip. Also, she was older than the rest of the group, so that in itself increased her risk of some type of negative outcome if anything was to happen.
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Post by ciecheesemeister »

I didn't really pay much attention to the foreshadowing element, I'm afraid, but there certainly were some warnings that the characters didn't heed. For instance, Bridget with the little dolls.
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Post by AntonelaMaria »

I didn't really pay attention to the foreshadowing in this novel. I usually take notice of them more while reading fantasy books. Still, I agree that the moment with Sarah is definitely a good example.
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Post by Carolreads30 »

As others are saying, I really did not notice the foreshadowing until you mentioned it here. I was assuming that Sarah was just very organized and due to her age, thought something might happen. I also never really gave thought to the fact that the psychic was not the first that she had seen. I remember reading about the reservation though and you could be correct in the fact that the others might have told her the same thing.
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Post by Namaste23 »

I think when Bridget started acting so mysterious over Skype and giving Hillary Seamus's phone number there was foreshadowing. It was weird that all of the sudden Bridget felt like she had to tell Hillary everything in person and that Hillary needed to get a burner phone.
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Post by WardahEbrahim »

TopaAzul062 wrote: 19 Mar 2020, 22:30 From California to Ireland, we follow a group of characters on a journey to experience, and learn new things. The story itself is pretty straight forward, yet there were subtle inclusions of foreshadowing included. What was interesting about this book, is that the scenes hinting toward a future event weren't noticed till much later when characters recalled past events.

Take Sarah for instance. Before they left, she made sure everything was squared away should something bad take place while on the trip. Fast-forward some days to Connemara where she invites a palm reader, Dukker, to tell her fortune.

Before the palm reader begins, she mentions fortune tellers from the reservation and said, "I've had 'em all. Now let's hear yours." Couldn't help but wonder, especially after the reading, if her past fortunes were similar to Dukker's. Hence, the arrangements made prior to the trip.

Did you notice any other foreshadow moments in the story? If so, which one(s) caught your attention?
At first, I thought it was just to show her personality and thoughtfulness, but then as the story progressed I started to think "no wonder!" :o :doh:
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Post by Stephanie Runyon »

I caught the foreshadowing moment you mentioned but I cannot recall any others. I got majorly absorbed by the character personalities more than anything.
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Post by Erin Dydek »

Spoilers: Honestly I thought all the foreshadowing made the book too predictable and I wasn’t surprised by Sara’s death or that Claire was kidnapped. The tower was talked about the whole book, and Claire’s obsession with Rapunzel made it pretty clear to me that at some point in the book there was going to be a “suspenseful scene in the old damaged tower.” I was also expecting Bridget to end up dead with all the threats against her. The surprising part was that it took more than half the book for that to happen.
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Post by AntonelaMaria »

Everydayadventure15 wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 18:29 Spoilers: Honestly I thought all the foreshadowing made the book too predictable and I wasn’t surprised by Sara’s death or that Claire was kidnapped. The tower was talked about the whole book, and Claire’s obsession with Rapunzel made it pretty clear to me that at some point in the book there was going to be a “suspenseful scene in the old damaged tower.” I was also expecting Bridget to end up dead with all the threats against her. The surprising part was that it took more than half the book for that to happen.
Really? I honestly didn't focus on it at all. I don't know, but I was just trying to get used to the writing style so I messed on all other things. I admit I was more interested in characters than the plotline.
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Post by Josephe-Anne »

Yes, there was a lot of foreshadowing in the book. From the fact that Sarah made funeral arrangements to the ominous words of the fortune teller, I had a feeling that something would happen to her (Sarah) too.
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Post by Erin Dydek »

AntonelaMaria wrote: 31 Mar 2020, 07:55
Everydayadventure15 wrote: 28 Mar 2020, 18:29 Spoilers: Honestly I thought all the foreshadowing made the book too predictable and I wasn’t surprised by Sara’s death or that Claire was kidnapped. The tower was talked about the whole book, and Claire’s obsession with Rapunzel made it pretty clear to me that at some point in the book there was going to be a “suspenseful scene in the old damaged tower.” I was also expecting Bridget to end up dead with all the threats against her. The surprising part was that it took more than half the book for that to happen.
Really? I honestly didn't focus on it at all. I don't know, but I was just trying to get used to the writing style so I messed on all other things. I admit I was more interested in characters than the plotline.
My husband is an author so we talk a lot about foreshadowing, pacing, and other writing elements. I didn’t mean it in a bad way, but when Sarah said she was ready in case she died on the trip, my thoughts turned to “why did you say that Sarah? Now I’m going to assume you die at some point!” That’s why I wasn’t surprised when she did 😬
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Post by Mandy Males Cole »

I figured early on that something would happen with Claire's long hair. She was adamant about not cutting it and loved to play with, and act the part of, Rapunzel. The thoughts on fortune-telling are interesting.
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Post by SunVixen »

Perhaps I am a very inattentive reader. I did not understand that these were foreshadowings until I read the book.
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