Dublin's Girl


Book Description

Falling in love with the enemy is the ultimate act of betrayal... 1917. A farm girl from Cavan, Veronica McDermott is desperate to find more to life than peeling potatoes. Persuading her family to let her stay with her aunt and uncle in Dublin so she can attend secretarial college, she has no idea what she is getting into. Recruited by Fr Michael O'Flanagan to type for Eamon De Valera, Veronica is soon caught up in the danger and intrigue of those fighting for Ireland's independence from Britain. The attentions of a handsome British soldier, Major Harry Fairfax, do not go unnoticed by Veronica's superiors. But when Veronica is tasked with earning his affections to gather intelligence for Sinn Féin, it isn't long before her loyalty to her countrymen and her feelings for Harry are in conflict. To choose one is to betray the other... Inspired by real life events and marking the centenary of the end of the War of Independence, Dublin's Girl is a thrilling historical debut from an exciting new Irish voice. Readers love Dublin's Girl! 'Reminiscent of Pam Jenoff's WWII novels and carried the suspense and anticipation of Eoin Dempsey's Finding Rebecca... The chemistry between the main characters was incredible.' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'Loved this!... Full of romance, political intrigue, suspense, and history.' Arrow Reads, 5 stars 'Fantastic read. I have been completely unable to put this one down. I cannot wait to read more by this author' Little Miss Book Lover 87, 5 stars 'I loved this book... Very highly recommended!' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'A great historical fiction novel that has romance, political intrigue, suspense, and most definitely action.' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'Wow... exciting and captivating.' NetGalley Reviewer, 5 stars 'Love learning about this time period in Irish history... drew me in immediately.' NetGalley Reviewer, 4 stars




The Dublin Girls


Book Description

Dramatic, emotional and romantic, if you love Lorna Cook, Tracy Rees and Jenny Ashcroft, you'll love this gripping and heartrending novel from Cathy Mansell, author of A Place to Belong. 'Glorious - a cross between Maeve Binchy and Catherine Cookson' 5* early reader review 'A superb saga' PETERBOROUGH TELEGRAPH 'A heart-warming story full of characters you'll come to love' ROSIE GOODWIN 'Page-turning and compelling... Most highly recommended' MARGARET KAINE 'Rarely have I read a book where every character springs from the pages so authentically' JEAN CHAPMAN 'A warm-hearted, engaging story' MARGARET JAMES, WRITING MAGAZINE In 1950s Dublin, life is hard and jobs are like gold dust. Nineteen-year-old Nell Flynn is training to be a nurse and planning to marry her boyfriend, Liam Connor, when her mother dies, leaving her younger sisters destitute. To save them from the workhouse, Nell returns to the family home - a mere two rooms at the top of a condemned tenement. Nell finds work at a biscuit factory and, at first, they scrape through each week. But then eight-year-old Róisín, delicate from birth, is admitted to hospital with rheumatic fever and fifteen-year-old Kate, rebellious, headstrong and resentful of Nell taking her mother's place, runs away. When Liam finds work in London, Nell stays to struggle on alone - her unwavering devotion to her sisters stronger even than her love for him. She's determined that one day the Dublin girls will be reunited and only then will she be free to follow her heart. Look for more gripping, heartwrenching page-turners from Cathy Mansell - don't miss A Place to Belong, out now.




Smarty Girl


Book Description

An autobiographical novel set in 1960s Ireland, this irresistible story follows the rise and fall of the O'Feeney family, seen through the eyes of a precocious little girl. More savage than civilized, Noleen is a rare character from a Dublin long forgotten, where Nelson's Pillar still stands in O'Connell Street'but not for long'and where untamed musicians gather in the O'Feeneys' kitchen to raise a jar and the roof. Noleen's father, a successful actor and scoundrel king of the city, does his best to destroy his family, while her mother tries to save it. Noleen schemes to make it through each Dublin day, cadging sweets and growing tough in the midst of chaos. In the end, however, nothing'not even a fierce girl's powerful imagination'can hold the family together and keep them, safe as geese in the sky, in their home on Tolka Row. Smarty Girl is a wild child's journey through a world alternately tender and brutal, humorous and heartbreaking, told in language as musical and vibrant as Dublin itself. Honor Molloy's mother Yvonne is an American theatre director who sailed to Ireland in 1953 to study in Trinity College. Her father John was a seventh generation Dubliner and a local legend for his work on stage, in films and on television. Dedicated to capturing and preserving the Dublin vernacular, they worked together for fifteen years producing plays, radio, television shows ...and six children. The life they led together---and the reasons that life had to end---provides the inspiration for their Smarty Girl.




The Country Girls


Book Description

A classic title in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy - the first volume It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin - where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world. 'She is one of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times 'O'Brien rises like a lark in the clear air, she sings as she flies' Literary Review 'One of the greatest writers in the English-speaking world' New York Times Book Review




Factory Girls


Book Description

A funny, fierce, and unforgettable read about a young woman working a summer job in a shirt factory in Northern Ireland, while tensions rise both inside and outside the factory walls. Winner of the Comedy Women in Print 2022-23 Published Novel Award It’s the summer of 1994, and all smart-mouthed Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles. She hopes she will soon be in London studying journalism—away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister’s death, and most of all, away from the violence of her divided community. As a first step, Maeve’s taken a job in a shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her best friends. But getting the right exam results is only part of Maeve’s problem—she’s got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day, and deal with the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slick and untrustworthy English boss. Then, as the British loyalist marching season raises tensions among the Catholic and Protestant workforce, Maeve realizes something is going on behind the scenes at the factory. What seems to be a great opportunity to earn money turns out to be a crucible in which Maeve faces the test of a lifetime. Seeking justice for herself and her fellow workers may just be Maeve’s one-way ticket out of town. Bitingly hilarious, clear-eyed, and steeped in the vernacular of its time and place, Factory Girls tackles questions of wealth and power, religion and nationalism, and how young women maintain hope for themselves and the future during divided, violent times. Shortlisted for the 2023 Royal Society of Literature Encore Award (for second novels) and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize




The Magdalen Girls


Book Description

Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest. Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations. Told with candor, compassion, and vivid historical detail, The Magdalen Girls is a masterfully written novel of life within the era’s notorious institutions—and an inspiring story of friendship, hope, and unyielding courage.




Country Girl


Book Description

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.




The Liar’s Girl


Book Description

“Readers of Paula Hawkins, Tana French, and Ruth Ware will love this exceptionally well-crafted thriller.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A very satisfying and twisty tale.”—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel Her first love confessed to five murders ... but the truth was so much worse. Will Hurley was an attractive, charming, and impressive student at Dublin’s elite St. John’s College—and Ireland’s most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his five young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just nineteen, Will is locked away in the city’s Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enroll in St. John’s and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed ... and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer—and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who’d been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in ten years, has never once looked back. When a young woman’s body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess—but there’s only one person he’s prepared to confess it to. The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she’s worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn’t set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all ...




City Girl


Book Description

In the tradition of Maeve Binchy, internationally bestselling author Patricia Scanlan delivers a charming and witty story about the strength and power of friendship. Whatever life holds, friends come first. A beautiful blonde, a quiet brown-eyed girl, and a redhead looking for adventure: meet Devlin, Caroline, and Maggie. Their staunch three-way friendship is born while sharing a house in Dublin and, over the years and their turbulent love lives, soon becomes the only certainty they have. That, and their membership of the city’s most prestigious health center for high-profile women: City Girl. Through bad times and good, this place will be their refuge. Full of warmth, wit, and wisdom, City Girl is a brilliant family drama from the bestselling author of With All My Love and A Time for Friends.




Girls Play Too


Book Description

Irish sportswomen have been breaking the mould for a very, very long time. In 1956, Maeve Kyle became our first female Olympian, and in 1978 rally driver Rosemary Smith broke the country’s land-speed record! Through the 1990s and 2000s we had world champions in Sonia O’Sullivan, Derval O’Rourke and Olive Loughnane, and more recently, the fantastic Katie Taylor, Kellie Harrington and Annalise Murphy have been among those who have put Irish sportswomen on the map. This book breaks the mould once more, as a first ever compendium of stories for children about our best contemporary sportswomen. With a fairytale touch, RTɒs Jacqui Hurley tells the stories of women who have proved that being a girl is not a barrier to sporting success. Each story is one of overcoming big challenges, and the role models celebrated here are sure to inspire the next generation of Irish sportswomen. Featuring twenty-five dazzling athletes, and with delightful drawings by five wonderful female Irish illustrators, Girls Play Too is a celebration of some of our brightest and best sporting stars, and of all that you can achieve if you try your best and never give up on your dreams.