The Cloud Catcher

Fran had had a rough life. Her father regularly beat and abused her with the complicity of her mother. School was torture and everyone that was anyone sided with her father. There seemed little prospect of escape. So when the 18-year-old chanced on a ravishing girl who whisked her off to a world where only girls lived, she thought she'd found the ideal refuge. Quite unlike the girls from her all-girls school run by nuns, these were wild and sensuous. Their favourite pursuits were kissing and chasing clouds. Not tame clouds like those in Fran's world, but intelligent beings whose nature was so strange it was hard to fathom. When one bonded with her, it hastened to protect her from her father's murderous rage, striking him down with angry lightning. The man's demise and the subsequent delirium of his wife left Fran heir to the farm. Her father might be dead, but his sordid legacy continued to haunt her, threatening to ruin her plans for a better life for herself and her new-found friends. In her struggles, she unearthed her past and discovered she had powers she couldn't have imagined...

Alan McCluskey lives amid the vineyards in a small Swiss village between three lakes and a range of mountains. Nearby, several thousands of years earlier, lakeside villages housed a thriving Celtic community. The ever-present heart-beat of that world continues to fuel his long-standing fascination for magic and fantasy.
All Alan McCluskey's books are about the self-empowerment of the young, girls in particular, in a world that tends to curtail their opportunities, belittle their abilities and discourage them from doing great things. His books also explore the difficulties of those whose gender and sexuality lie beyond the dominant binary divide between boy and girl. His goal in writing fiction is to imagine inspiring ways forward, despite the difficulties thrown in the way of these young people.