Balbriggan Author set to launch sequel to his best seller DARKLINE
Patrick Bentley was born in 1964 into a poverty-stricken home. Family problems drove him into early petty crime, and from the age of nine he was locked up in a string of residential institutions where he was subjected to various kinds of abuse.
Deprived of a basic education, he wound up on drugs and in prison on several occasions.
By his mid-twenties he picked up a job in fish factory. It was around that time that he found a relationship with God and married.
But tragedy stuck when his mother was knocked down and killed in 1995. His own marriage fell apart and he ended up back on drugs and living alone.
In 2007 while on cocaine he had a terrifying near-death experience which proved to be the turning point in his life. He checked into counselling, turned away from drugs, re-married and bought an apartment.
He then picked up the pen to write his first book, the autobiographical The Jagged Halo. This led to him appearing on TV3’s Ireland AM in 2010 and to the first of many newspaper articles, in this case The Sunday World. He then started straight into his first novel DARKLINE which was published in 2012. This proved to be a massive hit with readers of all ages. The book sold over 7,500 copies and has been given a two-page spread in The Sunday Mirror. 95 percent of his sales has been made going door to door all over Dublin which has resulted in meeting and advising thousands of concerned parents who live in constant fear of their kids growing up surrounded by a drug culture that in the past few years seems to have grown in strength.
He then wrote the powerful sequel to DARKLINE, entitled A Nation out of Time which drew the interest of the mainstream publishers Liberties Press. But Patrick made the decision to go it alone once again. The book is currently due for release on the 21th of Aug in Raffs on the corner Skerries at 7pm. With live music by Don Baker.
Lately Patrick has openly admitted he suffered and very Bad burn out that’s affected him for just over a year. It’s only in the past three months that he’s recovered, just in time to launch his new book.
He did ask to just remind people that his books are in no way trying to belittle our local towns here in the Fingal. By writing about the Dark reality of drugs, gives inside information to families to what’s now a known common problem right across every town in Ireland. He ends by asking that parents with young kids or teenagers, to not give up hope or give into the awful fear for their kid’s future welfare. There is a hope for the future....