Showing results by narrator "Caroline Lennon" in All Categories

Can Nora make a new start in Ireland if her heart is in Liverpool? 1940s Dublin. Handsome widower Johnny Cassidy is out of work and lost as to how to look after his four children. Broken-hearted, he's tempted to look for the answer at the bottom of a beer glass, and it takes another calamity for him to realise help sometimes comes from the strangest places.

Bruno, an American, has come to Ireland to search for his roots. Addie, an out-of-work architect, is recovering from heartbreak while taking care of her infirm father. When their worlds collide, they experience a connection unlike any they've previously felt, but soon a tragedy will test them - and their newfound love - in ways they never imagined possible.

Wighard, archbishop designate of Canterbury, has been discovered garrotted in his chambers in the Lateran Palace in Rome in the autumn of AD 664. The solution to this terrible crime appears simple as the palace guards have arrested Brother Ronan Ragallach, as he fled from Wighard's chamber. Although the Irish monk denies responsibility, Bishop Gelasius is convinced the crime is political and that Wighard was slain in pique at the triumph of the pro-Roman Anglo-Saxon clergy in their debate with the pro-Columba Irish clergy at Whitby.

After another relationship disaster Alice Littleton returns home to spend summer in Dublin’s Sandycove with her Mum, Ciara and beloved grandmother Eva at their family deli and grocers. As Alice settles back into her old life with best friend Becca and her new boyfriend Conal Blake, she begins to fall in love with the comings and goings of their family shop and once more enjoying the rhythms of Irish life.

Grief. Anger. Joy. Fear. Distraction. Disgust. Hope. All emotions we expect to encounter over our lifetime. But what if this was every day? And what if your ability to manage them was the difference between life and death? For a doctor in intensive care, this is part of the job. Fear in the eyes of a terminally ill patient who pleads with you to not let them die. Grief when you make a potentially fatal mistake. Disgust at caring for a convicted rapist.

The Abbey of Imleach, in the southwest Irish kingdom of Muman, now rivals Armagh as the centre of the faith in Ireland. For the founder of the abbey was none other than St Ailbe, the man who brought Christianity to Muman, converted its king and baptised him at Cashel in AD448. But now, calamity has struck the community of the abbey. Not only has an elderly monk suddenly disappeared, but the holy relics of St Ailbe have also vanished. These sacred relics are not just the concern of the abbey's community but are a priceless icon and political symbol of the entire kingdom....

Whispers of the Dead is a sumptuously rich feast of 15 short mystery tales, featuring the brilliant and beguiling Sister Fidelma, the 17th-century sleuth of the Celtic Church. Sister Fidelma originally made her debut as one of crime fiction's most interesting sleuths in short story form. The sharp-witted religieuse captured the hearts of many readers as she successfully tackled the most baffling of crimes in her other role as advocate of the law courts of Ireland, using the ancient Brehon Law system.

Thea Osbourne is only too happy to have a bit of peace and quiet. The only positive thing that came out of her recent house sitting disasters is her blossoming relationship with DI Phil Hollis and she relishes the thought of their spending some quality time together. Even meeting Phil’s childhood acquaintance, the eccentric Ariadne, cannot detract from Thea’s happiness. But the bad luck that plagues the hapless Thea and her beloved spaniel Hepzipah is never far away.

Arriving home from a pilgrim voyage, Sister Fidelma hears that her faithful Saxon companion, Brother Eadulf, is under sentence of death for murder. She hastens to the capital of Laigin, where he is being held, determined to appeal against the sentence. The crime took place at the abbey of Fearna, where Fidelma clashes with the sinister Abbess Fainder. The evidence against Eadulf seems overwhelming - can he actually be guilty? Will Fidelma's emotional involvement blind her in her desperate search for the truth?

Touchy Subjects is about things that make people wince: taboos, controversies, secrets, and lies. Some of the events that characters crash into are grand, tragic ones: miscarriage, overdose, missing persons. Other topics, like religion and money, are not inherently taboo, but they can cause acute discomfort because people disagree so vehemently. These stories are about the spectrum of feeling that runs from awkwardness through embarrassment to shame.

Sister Fidelma has been sent by her brother, king of Cashel, to Laisre, chieftain of Gleann Geis - the 'forbidden valley' - to negotiate permission to build a Christian church and school in his territory, replacing the pagan Druidic sanctuaries. Laisre is known to be hostile to the new religion, and Fidelma knows her mission will be no easy task. Entering Gleann Geis with the Saxon Brother Eadulf, she comes across the naked, slain bodies of thirty-three young men, positioned in a sunwise circle.

After a fire rips through a North London tower block, two bodies are found locked in an eleventh-floor flat. But it is the third victim - the MP Geoff Armstrong - that requires the presence of detective Maeve Kerrigan and the murder squad. It appears that Armstrong, trapped by the fire, chose to jump to his death rather than wait for rescue. But why? And what was the controversial right-wing politician doing there in the first place? As Maeve picks through the wreckage, she will uncover a secret world where everyone has something to hide.

Colm Tóibín's Mothers and Sons is a sensitive and beautifully written meditation on the dramas surrounding this most elemental of relationships. Psychologically intricate and emotionally incisive, each finely wrought story teases out the delicate and difficult strands woven between mothers and sons. This is an acute, masterful and moving collection that confirms Tóibín as a great prose stylist of our time.

Maggie Ryan can't help it! She constantly finds herself organising and meddling in the lives of others, trying to match things and people together, from her neighbours in Dublin's Pleasant Square to her own family. With three bright, beautiful daughters who are still single, Maggie decides that a little romantic matching is needed. However, matchmaking is not as easy as it seems, and Maggie's quest to find the perfect partner for each of her reluctant daughters is proving difficult.

Kate O'Brien is 30 and has very little to think about except trying to keep her balance as she totters up London's media-land ladder. Fiona O'Brien is Kate's responsible older sister - with a husband, twin boys, a dog, and now - a life-changing problem.

Deirdre Weston, a London journalist, returns to her family home in Armagh to come to terms with the death of her mother. Faced with painful memories of her own past, Deirdre almost despairs of the task she has set herself. At the point of her deepest need, she is comforted by Deara, a mysterious young woman from fifth-century Ireland who draws her into the Druidic world of Tara, where the conflicts echo those of troubled 20th-century Ulster.

Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.

It is 1942, and the Second World War has been going on for three wearying years. Work is hard and hours long in the four Ulster mills in Northern Ireland where Alex Hamilton struggles to keep overworked machines going, just as his wife Emily tries to provide food and comfort not only for their own son and daughters, but for the many young American soldiers stationed nearby.

Seventeen and sure of nothing, Maria has left her parents’ small-town grocery for university life in Dublin. An ad in the Student Union – “2 females seek flatmate. No bigots” – leads Maria to a home with warm Ruth and wickedly funny Jael, students who are older and more fascinating that she’d expected. But one day something Maria glimpses by accident blows her mind open, and she is forced to question everything she thought she knew about sexuality.

Children today grow up in an increasingly volatile, complex and uncertain world. Theirs is a generation disempowered from steering their lives while society’s systems are failing to provide the support they need. Yet, a country only prospers when its children—from all walks of life—thrive, meaning that the United Kingdom now faces some consequential choices. Raising the Nation builds a compelling case showing why we must nurture smart, strong and kind children to one day inherit the stewardship of society.