Showing results by narrator "Aoife McMahon" in All Categories

The Macnamara sisters hadn't been seen for months before anyone noticed. It was Father Timoney who finally broke down the door. One woman was sitting in her armchair, surrounded by religious tracts, the other was crouched under her own bed. Both had starved themselves to death. Francesca Macnamara returns to Dublin after decades in the US, to find her family in ruins. Meanwhile, Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are convinced that there is more to the deaths than suicide. Because what little evidence there is shows that someone was watching the sisters die....

When Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps of the Four Courts in April 2018 - having refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement in the settlement of her action against the HSE - she unearthed the medical and political scandal of our times. It would emerge that, like Vicky, 220 other women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer were not informed that a clinical audit - carried out by the national screen programme CervicalCheck - had revised their earlier, negative smear tests. Their cancers could possibly have been preventable.

Fans of Abi Elphinstone and Katherine Rundell will adore this fantasy adventure trilogy about witches and forbidden magic from a beloved and award-winning Irish writer. In the second book in The Wild Magic Trilogy, the queen and her raggedy witches have fled, but the kingdom is not yet healed. The castle is haunted by memories of its brutal past. The ghosts are angry, and one of them in particular possesses a magic which may be too much for even Mup and Mam to handle.

Meet Belle. Belle has taken all the Christmas decorations down. This year they won’t be celebrating. As foster parents, Belle and Jim have given many children the chance of a happier start in life. They’ve loved them as if they were their own. They shouldn’t have favourites but little Lauren has touched their hearts. And now her mother is well enough to take her back and Belle can’t bear the loss. Hence, Christmas is cancelled. So when Jim crashes his car one icy December night, after an argument about Lauren, Belle can only blame herself.

Which would you choose . . . love or career? For ambitious Lizzie career always came first. So, when an opportunity to climb the ladder lands in her lap, Lizzie ignores her attraction for the handsome client, and focuses on finally getting the promotion she's been after. Only this time, Lizzie...

Ronda McCann lives a quiet, careful life. She cycles to her job as a care assistant in a nursing home from her childhood home, where she lives with her widowed mother, Annie, after a failed relationship. But Ronda has a rich fantasy life. In her imagination she is brave, assertive, respected and admired … much like her sister Margo, a successful working mother and wife. However, there’s no place for a chronic day-dreamer in Margo’s world. Ronda is flung out of her dream world when her sister insists that she learn to drive.

Lion shifter Elliott Harkness is in Ireland for the dream vacation of a lifetime—and helping the Shamrock Safari Wildlife Park do some fundraising! After all, it's not often that a shifter gets to display his animal form in public, and being the 'lion on loan' means Elliott can show off while doing some good for the underfunded park. Aoife Gallagher loves her education and outreach job at the Safari Park, but there's something weird going on.

When Liv Latimer says goodbye to her colleagues and finishes work for the holidays, she's looking forward to a Christmas to remember with her boyfriend Eddie. But before she makes it home, her phone rings, calling her back into work. And Liv is faced with a choice. Does she do as she's always done, and put herself second? Or, will she say no, so she can finally begin the life she's dreamed of? Liv's decision will turn her world upside down in ways she could never have imagined. Because whatever choice she makes, Liv is about to discover, fate finds a way...

For centuries, the people of remote Ballybrine have kept the peace with their gods by sacrificing a Red Maiden to ferry souls from the Mother’s realm of the living, through the Dark Wood, to the Wolf’s realm of the dead. Soon it will be Rowan’s turn. Ripped from her family as a young girl, Rowan Cleary has been forced into a cloistered life learning to please the wolf and wield her spirit-enchanting voice. Though none of the previous maidens have survived their five-year term, Rowan is determined to beat the odds and protect the women who have become family to her.

Staring up at the magnificent, rose-covered walls of her grandmother’s house, Violet Fleury isn’t sure she’ll be welcome inside. After running from her hometown in Ireland to follow her dreams of acting, she’s back to play Irish legend, Kathleen O’Sullivan, in a local film. She’s vowed to tell the story of the woman her village is so proud of—and to build bridges with the family she drifted away from. But will they give her a second chance?

Dublin, 1943. Actress Julia Bridges disappears. The last sighting of her is entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of another woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death – and Julia’s body has never been found. Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, until her apparent suicide a few years later, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her.

In 1914, when Nicandra is eight, all is well in the grand Irish estate, Deer Forest. Maman is beautiful and adored. Dada, silent and small, mooches contentedly around the stables. Aunt Tossie, of the giant heart and bosom, is widowed but looks splendid in weeds. The butler, the groom, the land-steward, the maids, the men - each as a place and knows it. Then, astonishingly, the perfect surface is shattered; Maman does something too dreadful ever to be spoken of.

When a couple holidaying in the small Irish village of Doolan disappear one night, leaving their child behind, Chrissy Livingstone has no choice but to involve herself in the mystery surrounding their disappearance. As the toddler is taken into care, it soon becomes apparent that in the close-knit village the couple are not the only ones with secrets to keep.

Twenty years ago, Oona left the island of Inis for the very first time. A wind-blasted rock of fishing boats and turf fires, where girls stayed in their homes until they became mothers, the island was a gift for some, a prison for others. Oona was barely more than a girl, but she promised herself she would leave the tall tales behind and never return. Rich, haunting, and rooted in Irish folklore, The Island Child is a spellbinding debut novel about identity and motherhood, freedom and fate, and the healing power of stories.

Set in Ireland prior to its achieving legislative independence from Britain in 1782, Castle Rackrent tells the story of three generations of an estate. One of the main sources of inspiration for the novel was a chronicle of her own family history called The Black Book of Edgeworthstown, which contain legal struggles of the Edgeworth's similar to those portrayed in the novel.

On an isolated beach set against a lonely windswept coastline, a pale figure sits serenely against a sand dune staring out to sea. His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed and there is a faint smile on his otherwise lifeless face. Months later, after a fruitless investigation, the nameless stranger is buried in an unmarked grave. But the mystery of his life and death lingers on, drawing the nearby villagers into its wake. From strandings to shipwrecks, it is not the first time that strangeness has washed up on their shores.

Exciting stories, extraordinary creatures and compelling gods, goddesses and heroes come together in this compendium of Norse myths - first told long ago by the Vikings. Listen to tales about Thor, the god of thunder, and how he once disguised himself as a bride to seek revenge on a giant and retrieve his powerful hammer Mjölnir; and how Sif, the goddess of fertility, had her long golden hair cut off by Loki, the trickster god. Each myth is told with thrilling immediacy, in language that is easy for children to understand, while retaining the awe and majesty of the original tales.

As the smell of pinecones and cinnamon fill the air and the plump turkey roasts in the oven, the final preparations for Christmas day have begun just as they do every year. The tree lights are twinkling and the mince pies are cooked and there is just one final tradition to carry out before the Christmas magic can begin. This year though, something is different and it's time for life-long traditions to change.

Everything is going great for Lily. She and Sam are more in love than ever, and she is about to open her very own bakery, but she soon discovers that no matter how much time you spend perfecting delicate pastries, running your own business isn’t always easy. When Sam announces he is moving to New York for work, Lily is miserable...but when he surprises her with a proposal life is perfect, right? But Lily finds it hard to let go of old hurts, and when Sam eventually loses patience, Lily is left devastated. Can she finally learn to leave the past in the past, or will she let it ruin the future?

For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. No cases to focus on, no leads to investigate, just a whole summer on a remote West Cork peninsula with her teenage daughter Lilly and her boyfriend, Conor and his son. The plan is to prepare Lilly for a move to Ireland. But their calm vacation takes a dangerous turn when human remains wash up below the steep cliffs of Ross Head.