Showing results by narrator "Aoife McMahon" in All Categories

The Essential Classics: Volume 2 brings together 5 of the greatest classics ever written, perfectly read by an esteemed cast including Juliet Stevenson, David Rintoul, Rachel Atkins, Stephen Hogan, Aoife McMahon, and Lucy Scott. Spanning a broad range of British and Irish literature, this collection includes hilarious stories of the 'gentleman's gentleman' in My Man, Jeeves, the revolutionary and intense tale of Jane and Rochester in Jane Eyre, as well as Joyce's grand modern masterpiece, Ulysses, and many more.

At Mossgrove, the Phelan family farm, longtime hired hand Jack plays peacemaker as widow Martha Phelan battles her young son, Peter, who wants to modernise the farm. Tensions on the home front are bitter enough, but at the Conway farm across the river, more trouble is brewing. Slovenly Matt Conway feels trapped and abuses his wife, Biddy. Spurred on by a misguided belief that the Phelans got the best of him in a loan to buy land, he keeps vigil at a fence post plotting revenge....

Joyce Conway remembers things she shouldn't. She knows about tiny cobbled streets in Paris, which she has never visited. And every night she dreams about an unknown little girl with blonde hair.

Things are finally looking up for Anna. Fourteen miserable years of marriage to man-child Connor have left her drained and ready for a new start. So when they separate, she couldn't be more thrilled to move in with James, a handsome lecturer who is everything her ex-husband is not: kind, thoughtful and above all, reliable. But Anna and James' kids hate living with the loved-up couple and the new set-up. Their teenage daughters—one a studious high achiever and the other a cool rich girl unbothered by grades or exams—have nothing in common.

Dear Elizabeth, I've been watching you. I hope to see you...soon. Liz Cafferky is on the up. Rescued from her dark past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men, Liz soon finds herself as the charity's face - and the unwilling darling of the Dublin media. Amidst her claustrophobic fame, Liz barely notices a letter from a new fan. But then one of the centre's clients is brutally murdered, and Elizabeth receives another, more sinister note. Running from her own ghosts, Liz is too scared to go to the police.

Set in rural Ireland in the early 1960s, House of Memories concludes the story of two neighbouring farms and their feuding families. Following his brutish father's death, young Danny Conway strives to rescue the family farm from ruin. When all seems hopeless, help comes from the most unexpected quarter. A story of grief and trying to cope with loss but also of resilience in the face of family tragedy. No one knows the minutiae of country life as Alice Taylor does, and again she displays her unique ability to capture its rhythms and cadences.

Cass and her best friends, Lex and Nicholas, are the Bubble Street Gang! They investigate crimes, solve mysteries and have brilliant adventures. They've even got their own secret clubhouse. The gang need money and quick, and they have some super-genius ideas on how to make it! Like Operation Start a Company, Make Loads of Money for Nicholas s Project and Probably Also Become Millionaires! But Cass also has a mystery to solve. Who is the invisible boy? And why can't anyone else see him? Join Cass and the Bubble Street Gang as they start Making Millions.

Being held hostage at gunpoint by her childhood friend is not Dr Heather Gilmore's idea of a good day at work. It only gets worse when she hears that her 19-year-old daughter, Leah, has been kidnapped. Sergeant Claire Boyle wasn't expecting to get caught up in a hostage situation during a doctor's appointment. When it becomes apparent that the kidnapping is somehow linked to the hostage taker, a woman called Eileen Delaney, she is put in charge of finding the missing girl.

A collection of 13 dark, feminist retellings of traditional fairy tales that follow in the tradition of Angela Carter; stories from Cinderella to Rumpelstiltskin, tales of mermaids and monsters, are given a unique witchy makeover....

At the time of her death in 1815, twenty-nine-year-old Ellen Hutchins had catalogued over a thousand species of seaweed and plants from her native Bantry Bay. Ireland’s first female botanist, Ellen was a major contributor to nineteenth-century scientific discovery. And yet, like so many brilliant women lost in history, it is her personal story that will resonate today. In her remarkable debut novel, Marianne Lee fuses fact with fiction to imagine Ellen’s rich but tormented inner life, repressed by the gender and class confines of her time.

When a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past.

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.

Southampton, 1912. Jessie is made from tough stuff. At just 19, after the death of her father, she opted not to follow her mother back to Ireland, preferring instead to take charge of her own destiny. When Jessie marries an Irishman and takes over the running of the cafe she works in, it seems as though all the pieces are coming together. But when destiny and a pushy local businessman have other ideas, everything she has worked for is taken away, bit by bit. Will she find the strength to keep fighting for the life she wants in the face of personal loss, gang bosses and embezzlement?

Izzie Silver left the small Irish town of Tamarin behind her for life in New York. She's big, beautiful, and dreams of her own model agency for plus-sized women (what her grandmother would call "healthy" women). Life is good - but she's just broken one of her cardinal rules and fallen for a married man.

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.

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.

Heather’s beloved daughter, Kayla, is her world. She is 15, a brilliant basketball player and a fierce friend. Heather and Kayla have always had a special relationship. For so many years it was just the two of them, watching Friends, baking cupcakes and laughing together. But now Kayla knows her time is short, and she wants to give something back to the mother she loves more than anyone else in the world. A gift that will change Heather’s life.

Siobhan Clough and her children are enjoying a holiday on the English coast. With them is Mary McCarthy and her volatile son, Liam. All is well until the arrival of Siobhan’s husband, George. A man of strong views and temper, he browbeats his wife, belittles his daughter, Christine, and treats Liam like a servant. A year later, Liam unexpectedly comes face to face with the father he has never known. Liam wants nothing to do with him, but when George Clough throws him out, he has little choice but to enter his father’s dangerous world of Irish politics.

Ava Connors is comfortable with her life just as it is, still living in the tiny terrace house where she was brought up by her grandmother, Maggie, seeing her long-term boyfriend, Finlay, and working in a florist. But Maggie’s health is declining, and Finlay is tired of waiting for Ava to make a commitment. Ava has never really known her mother, Scarlett; when she inherits an old and dilapidated house it ignites an interest in the mother who abandoned her as a child. Why did Scarlett leave her to be brought up by her grandmother? Ava begins to question her past.