![FREE PASSAGE[1]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/af7bd3_7f073f8319c2471aa3faea685048d773.jpeg/v1/fill/w_980,h_665,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/af7bd3_7f073f8319c2471aa3faea685048d773.jpeg)
Terry is a freelance illustrator and commercial artist based in Whitstable, UK.
He has worked in almost all areas of illustration from publishing to advertising and as a book designer. As an illustrator, Terry has the gift of being able to 'see' the story from the inside and bring the humour, pathos or drama to 'leap off the page' life!
His work is produced using both digital and traditional media - although over the last ten years or so digital image creation has predominated. However, he has recently rediscovered painting, so who knows which direction his work will go over the next ten years…
He has exhibited prints at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and The Royal Society for Painter Etchers.
Social Media: Facebook; LinkedIn; Twitter;
Teacher notes and activity sheets available on request via Contact page.
FREE PASSAGE
What price freedom? What will a man or woman give for passage into a better life, a life free of what drove them to escape?
Set during the Civil War, “Free Passage” tells interlinked stories of men, young women and children, whose lives are torn apart by War. Each of them flies in the face of adversity and each triumphs, though in a very different way. It begins with the tragedy of the Maguire twins
and introduces Girl, a deaf slave, who finds forbidden love with a good man, her owner’s son, only to have the War wrench them apart. She flees to seek freedom for herself and her
child in Canada. Migrant tinker, Herr Schmidt, seeks across the war-torn States to find his missing daughter, Mina, and finds instead a runaway slave and an orphaned boy caring for his little brother. The War makes a man of the boy before his
time. Mina escapes her captors and lives by her wits, finding her way to safety and a future she could once only dream...
REVIEWS:
[ABRIDGED]:
J.R. McRae’s historical coming of age novel, Free Passage, is a spellbinding and gripping story, […] there are so many unforgettable characters and stories in this superb and moving novel. I was totally blown away by the power and intensity of these young adult tales. Terry Hand’s illustrations are masterful, […]each panel fleshes out the characters and their stories beautifully. Free Passage brings history to life brilliantly. It’s most highly recommended.
5 Star Review by Jack Magnus, Readers' Favorite
[ABRIDGED]:
There is much in Free Passage, a haunting novella by J.R McRae, that will resonate with [readers] long after they have finished the final page.
J.R McRae weaves together four perspectives that highlight the tragedy of war.
The action races off the page ... in a world of shifting alliances, hulking danger, and betrayal at every turn. The treatment of women in this novel is confronting but necessarily so to show just how fraught with danger ... being feminine was in such vicious times.
Giving historically maligned characters such strong voices is a stand out quality of Free Passage and one that offers its audience the chance to see this historical conflict from a very different perspective. Louise Lavery, journalist, writer
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Each of the four interlinking stories in FREE PASSAGE was previously published in an anthology or journal.
A House Divided in Basics of Life, Australian Literature Review anthology, edited by Steve Rossiter, 2011
Girl's Story in both
Wordgathering [Australia], Dec 2014 & Kaleidoscope [USA], issue 71, 2015
The Making of Me in A Journey You Say?, editor, Chris Bartholomew, Static Movement Press, Georgia, USA, 2013
Mina in A Journey You Say?, editor, Chris Bartholomew, Static Movement Press, Georgia, USA, 2013
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK