Showing results by narrator "Caroline Lennon" in All Categories

If it hadn't been for the child then none of this might have happened. She saw me kissing her father. She saw her father kissing me. The fact that a child got mixed up in it all made us feel that it mattered, that there was no going back.

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.

One of the greatest historical fiction adventures in children's literature. For Eily, Michael and Peggy the memory of the famine is still strong. But Mary-Brigid, Eily's first child, has the future to look forward to. What kind of future is it? Ireland is in turmoil, with evictions, burnings, secret meetings, fights over land. Eily and her family may be thrown off their farm. Michael may lose his job in the big house. And Peggy, in America, feels trapped in her role as a maid. Will they ever have land and a home they can call their own?

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.

For Sara Keane, it was supposed to be a second chance. A new country. A new house. A new beginning. Then came the knock on the door. Elderly Mary Jackson can't understand why Sara and her husband are living in her home. She remembers the fire. She remembers the house burning down. But she also remembers the children. The children who need her. The children she must protect.

Marianne has worked hard to provide her children with a secure and loving home. But then comes the news that will change everything: Her husband, Dominic, has been found dead. As she and the police delve deeper into the circumstances surrounding Dominic's death, they discover a web of lies that conceals a shady double life. Little does she realise that the worst is yet to come....

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....

1980: Josephine flees her home in Ireland to start a new life in London - but can't leave her traumatic childhood behind. Seventeen years and two children later, her sister calls: their mother is dying and wants to see Josephine. It's a summons she can't refuse....

An ordinary day. An ordinary bank. An ordinary street in an ordinary town. Nothing ever happens until one day a shocking robbery turns life upside down for five people - Cillian, a police detective; Martha, the woman he thought was the love of his life; Tobias, who came to Ireland after World War II and now lies in a coma, shot in the bank robbery; Roman, the young Polish teenager who is suspected of pulling the trigger; and his mother, Rosa the cleaner, who dreamed of a better life for herself and her son - and things will never be ordinary again.

For 13 years Pen and Cara have had a tumultuous relationship crammed with bickering and intimacy, recrimination and desire. When Cara dies in a car crash, Pen is left to cope with a secret widowhood. Along with that burden comes a hidden story of painful and pleasurable memories. With humour and poignancy, Hood follows Pen through the week of Cara’s death; through the paralysis of grief and the ecstasy of nostalgia to a point where mourning and making a new life melt into one.

1971. With the troubles in Belfast at their height, a happy domestic life is something that Tess Maguire yearns for. Yet the political and social unrest are sending ripples of uncertainty through every aspect of her life. Whilst her partnership with her friend Theresa Cunningham in a dressmaking firm is successful, it's beginning to affect her romantic interests. Theresa's boyfriend Bob always seems to be near Tess. Near enough, one night, to declare his true feelings for her....

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.

As they are preparing to return to Ireland, Fidelma and Brother Eadulf receive a mysterious summons. Eadulf's childhood friend, Brother Botulf, has requested their presence at Aldred's Abbey at midnight on the old pagan feast of Yule. Fidelma and Eadulf battle against the harsh winter storms to arrive in time, only to find they are too late. Botulf is dead - killed by an unknown hand. As they struggle to comprehend this staggering news, it soon becomes clear that the murder of this young monk is not the only trouble facing the abbey.

Super sleuth Sister Fidelma returns in Smoke in the Wind, the 11th perplexing historical mystery by Peter Tremayne. Sister Fidelma and her companion, Brother Eadulf, are on their way to visit the new Archbishop of Canterbury when their ship is blown off course and they land on the coast of the Welsh kingdom of Dyfed.

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?

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.

Grace sees her boyfriend Henry everywhere. In the supermarket, on the street, at the graveyard. Only Henry is dead. He died two months earlier, leaving a huge hole in Grace's heart. But then Henry turns up to fix the boiler one evening, and Grace can't decide if she's hallucinating or has suddenly developed psychic powers....

A mother always knows best. Doesn't she? For single mum Kate O'Hara, there was no decision to make. Her daughter, Rosie, is one of a small percentage of Irish children with a disorder that prevents her from being vaccinated against measles. All Kate can do is hope that herd immunity keeps the disease at bay and her little girl safe. For Madeleine Harrington, it was a leap of faith she wasn't prepared to take. Which is why she and her husband decline measles jabs for their daughter, Clara.

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.

In early 2018, Erin Darcy created an online art project, "In Her Shoes – Women of the Eighth", to safely and anonymously share private stories of the real and devastating impact of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland. In the five months leading up to the referendum on abortion, the project asked a simple question of undecided voters: put yourself in her shoes. Within weeks, Erin was receiving hundreds of stories from a broad spectrum of experiences of planned and unplanned terminations.