Showing results by author "Jean Grainger" in All Categories

If you want to disappear, start again, make a new life, a small Irish village is probably not the wisest place to go, since anonymity is not something we do well here. The arrival of someone new is always a cause for twitching curtains and whispered conversations. But here, like everywhere, people have their secrets, and as the local sergeant I’m expected to have my eyes peeled for anything unusual. And I do. Usually. Until I don’t, and the consequences are potentially fatal.

There are some days when being the Garda Sergeant of a small Irish town really tests me. Having to police my family and friends is a necessary evil, but when I’m faced with arresting half the children in the town, and discovering someone close to me among the offenders, well, those days I really wish I’d chosen a different career. Irate parents are not my only problem unfortunately, as I’m then called to manage a baying mob of strangers, bearing placards and demanding change. I’m all for peaceful protest, but these people were threatening the vulnerable, and I’m just not having that.

For twenty-year-old Harp Devereaux, life should be idyllic. At university, she feels for the first time in her life that she belongs, her mother Rose is running the Cliff House as a successful business, and her childhood sweetheart JohnJoe is by her side, but the storm clouds of war grow ever darker. For eight hundred years Ireland has made numerous bids for her freedom but now, at last, liberation from British rule is tantalisingly close, if the men and women of the revolution can just hold on.

In the first book, What Once Was True, two families, one of grandeur and one of the working class, navigate the conflicts associated with the looming war ahead. Despite delusions of grandeur, Lord and Lady Kenefick and their adult children live a life of decayed opulence as the money needed to keep such a house and grounds ever dwindles.

The port of Queenstown bustles with activity as people traverse the Atlantic either in search of new lives on foreign shores or returning to old familiar ones in Ireland. The Cliff House is fast gaining a reputation as a wonderful place to stay, and the business is going from strength to strength. Rose and Harp have turned their fortunes around and for the first time they are prosperous and independent. But all is not well.

When Conor’s dream for Castle Dysert is facing ruin by circumstances outside his control he refuses to be beaten. Surely there must be a way to save everything they’ve worked so hard for? Then, as all hope seems lost, a solution in the form of a reality TV show called ‘Grandma says we’re Irish’ presents itself. The producers are convinced Conor is just the man they need to host the show, and what better setting than the gorgeous castle, but is will this new venture save Castle Dysert or destroy it?

Twenty-five-year-old Billie Romano is struggling. She is grieving the death of her beloved dad and nothing in her life is going right. Her mother has remarried with indecent haste, so when her grandfather presents everyone in the family with a DNA testing kit for fun, Billie couldn’t be less interested in playing happy families. The test results are shocking, and Billie finds herself caught in a turmoil of emotions as she is faced with a reality she could never have imagined.

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland. 1975. Despite the best efforts to the older generation to maintain standards, short skirts, long hair and loud music are all the rage in Kilteegan Bridge. Emmet Kogan has set his sights on an education at the prestigious Stanford University in California, while his cousin Nellie also longs to get away, but for very different reasons. If she’s to escape too, it will mean wrapping herself in a web of lies, but it’s a price she’s willing to pay.

The day Titanic sails from Queenstown, taking with it the hopes and dreams of so many, Harp’s life too is devastated. The small port town is shaken to its foundations at the loss of the unsinkable ship, but the revelation of a long-held secret means that Harp and Rose have a much more pressing issue to solve, one that could destroy them if they cannot find a solution.

Lena Kogan is thrilled when her son Emmet invites her to the opening of his first building in San Francisco. It’s awkward that she will be staying with Emmet’s father Malachy Berger, but he’s in a serious relationship now, and anyway, he knows how Lena feels about Eli, so surely they can just be friends. Her sister Emily, is less adventurous. She's happy to stay at home with her family and a thriving business, that is until her daughter Nellie drops another bombshell on her about what she plans to do next. A move nobody could have anticipated and few support.

When her husband doesn’t come home one day, Ariella realises that the only way she can ensure her Jewish children’s safety is to avail of the Kindertransport, but can she bear to let them go? A thousand miles away, Elizabeth Klein has closed herself off from the world. Losing her husband on the last day of the Great War, and her child months later, she cannot, will not, love again. It hurts too much. But she is all Liesl and Erich Bannon have.

Years of neglect and abandonment have left the family seat of the Keneficks almost derelict, but the new Lord Kenefick and his charming young wife Kate are determined to breathe life into the old house once more. The war is over, and they have survived, so now they must set about making a bright future for themselves and their family. But the shadows of the past are ever lurking, and there are many who are not willing to see the new Lady Kenefick as anything more than the housekeeper's daughter.

Ballycarrick is changing rapidly and not everyone is happy. No more a sleepy backwater, where everyone knows everyone else, and their business, the expansion of cities and towns into rural Ireland means opportunity for some undoubtedly, but not for everyone. Sergeant Mags Munroe finds herself faced with a situation so unlikely it's almost laughable, but as things unfold, what seemed like a joke, is no longer funny, as sinister influences from much further afield take a keen interest in Ballycarrick, but why?

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland 1974. Eli’s need to do his best by his patients is a cause for a bitter divide in the community. Emmet seems hell bent on going down a path in life his parents dread but they’re unable to stop him. Jack’s life and liberty are in grave peril as his secret faces exposure, while Emily’s troubles are, it seems only just beginning with the return of someone she would much rather had disappeared forever. And Maria must decide, is blood really thicker than water, and should family always come first, no matter the cost?

Handsome, charming Conor O’Shea has had enough of driving and guiding tours of Ireland. So when an opportunity to renovate and run the magnificent but rundown Castle Dysert as a five-star resort presents itself, he grabs it with both hands. But problems arise almost immediately when his business partner appears to have more on her agenda than just business.

Robinswood Estate, County Waterford, 1950 Three sisters, the three men that love them, and a house that could consume them all. Assuming their roles as the new Lord and Lady Kenefick and returning to Robinswood with the plan to drag it back from the brink of dereliction, is taking its toll on Kate and Sam.

Harp Devereaux is torn. Part of her desperately wants to return to Ireland to finish what she and her family and friends started, and to witness the departure of the British forces from Ireland after eight hundred long years. But the other part finds life in America during the Roaring Twenties too exciting to trade for the sleepy streets of County Cork.

Liesl Bannon has never felt like she was truly at home anywhere, not since her mother placed her and her brother Erich on the last Kindertransport out of Berlin in 1939. She’d been so much more fortunate than most Jews, saved from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Being adopted by Elizabeth and Daniel Lieber meant she and Erich spent the war in Northern Ireland, safe and loved, but Liesl always knew something was missing. When an opportunity to return to Berlin to represent her university presents itself, she is so torn.

Erich Bannon is happy in the small Irish village he has thought of as home since he arrived as a terrified, traumatised seven year old, one of the last Jewish children to escape Berlin in 1939. Now at twenty-three, it feels like all of his friends are drawn to The Promised Land, and he can understand why, but Israel is not for him. One by one, they leave, and Erich is bereft. He feels lost but a chance encounter with an Irish Catholic girl gives him hope.

Dublin, Ireland 1915. Eighteen-year-old May Gallagher is beautiful but restless, and longs for the freedom to live her own life, to decide her own destiny. Mollycoddled as the only remaining child of middle-class parents in the suburbs, she sneaks out to the theatre when she can. She is mesmerised by the captivating actor Peter Cullen, and wishes she could enjoy a more bohemian life. The Great War is taking all the boys away, and the promise that it will all be over by Christmas is ringing more hollow with each passing month.