Book picks similar to
Make Yourself at Home by Ciara Geraghty
ireland
fiction
irish
people-and-life
Two Moons
Jennifer Johnston - 1998
The events of the next few days will lead both of them to reassess the shape of their lives.
The Good Luck of Right Now
Matthew Quick - 2014
When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly? Bartholomew thinks he's found a clue when he discovers a "Free Tibet" letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother's underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard - there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man's heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own. A struggling priest, a "Girlbrarian," her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the cat Parliament and find his biological father... and discover so much more.
Deliver Her
Patricia Perry Donovan - 2016
Alex survives; Cass doesn’t. Consumed by grief, Alex starts cutting school and partying, growing increasingly detached. The future she’d planned with her friend is now meaningless to her.Meg Carmody is heartbroken for her daughter, even as she’s desperate to get Alex’s life back on track. The Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire, promises to do just that, yet Alex refuses to go. But when Meg finds a bag of pills hidden in the house, she makes a fateful call to a transporter whose company specializes in shuttling troubled teens to places like The Birches, under strict supervision. Meg knows Alex will feel betrayed—as will her estranged husband, who knows nothing of Meg’s plans for their daughter.When the transport goes wrong—and Alex goes missing—Meg must face the consequences of her decision and her deception. But the hunt for Alex reveals that Meg is not the only one keeping secrets.
Everything Changes
Jonathan Tropper - 2005
A steady, well-paying job; a rent-free Manhattan apartment; and Hope, his stunning, blue-blooded fiancée: smart, sexy, and completely out of his league. But as the wedding day looms, Zack finds himself haunted by the memory of his best friend, Rael, killed in a car wreck two years earlier, and by his increasingly complicated feelings for Tamara, the beautiful widow Rael left behind. Then Norm--Zack’s freewheeling, Viagra-popping father--resurfaces after a twenty-year absence, looking to make amends. Norm’s overbearing, often outrageous efforts to reestablish ties with his sons infuriate Zack, and yet, despite twenty years of bad blood, he finds something compelling in his father’s maniacal determination to transform his own life. Inspired by Norm, Zack boldly attempts to make some changes of his own, and the results are instantly calamitous. Soon fists are flying, his love life is a shambles, and his once carefully structured existence is spinning hopelessly out of control. Charged with intelligence and razor sharp wit, Everything Changes is at once hilarious, moving, sexy, and wise.
Grace After Henry
Eithne Shortall - 2018
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 life and in her 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. Grace isn't going mad - the man in front of her is not Henry at all, but someone else who looks uncannily like him. The hole in Grace's heart grows ever larger. Grace becomes captivated by this stranger, Andy - to her, he is Henry, and yet he is not. Reminded of everything she once had, can Grace recreate that lost love with Andy, resurrecting Henry in the process, or does loving Andy mean letting go of Henry?
The Witch Elm
Tana French - 2018
Struggling to recover from his injuries, beginning to understand that he might never be the same man again, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr
Frances Maynard - 2017
She also strongly believes in crisp schedules, clear guidelines, and taking people at face value. Not that the twenty-seven-year-old sees many people. After several unfortunate incidents, her overbearing mother keeps her at home.But when her mother has a stroke, Elvira is suddenly on her own. To help her navigate a world that is often puzzling, she draws up seven ironclad rules. Armed with these, a notebook full of questions, and guidance from a helpful neighbor, she takes charge of herself―and realizes that something isn't quite right about the life she thought she knew.She'll need all the courage, perseverance and curious charm she can muster to unravel the mystery of what happened to her family and to manager her own life, her way.
The Marriage Bed
Regina McBride - 2004
There, she finds a foreign, civilized world -- and Manus, the architect son of a wealthy, devout family. Together Deirdre and Manus build a marriage that, like Dublin itself, is fraught with hope and threatened by legacies. When Deirdre's secret resurfaces, she is forced to confront the questions "How much of our parents do we carry? Do their sins and frailties shape who we become to our own children?"
The Innocent Sleep
Karen Perry - 2014
. .Five years ago, three-year-old Dillon disappeared. For his father Harry - who left him alone for ten crucial minutes - it was an unforgivable lapse. Yet Dillon's mother Robyn has never blamed her husband: her own secret guilt is burden enough.Now they're trying to move on, returning home to Dublin to make a fresh start.But their lives are turned upside down the day Harry sees an eight-year-old boy in the crowd. A boy Harry is convinced is Dillon. But the boy vanishes before he can do anything about it.What Harry thought he saw quickly plunges their marriage into a spiral of crazed obsession and broken trust, uncovering deceits and shameful secrets. Everything Robyn and Harry ever believed in one another is cast into doubt.And at the centre of it all is the boy that never was . . .
Little Big Love
Katy Regan - 2018
About a Boy meets Parenthood in this smart, big-hearted love story about a family for whom everything changed one night, a decade ago, and the young boy who unites them all.Told through the eyes of Zac, Juliet, and grandfather Mick, Little Big Love is a layered, heartfelt, utterly satisfying story about family, love, and the secrets that can define who we are.
Fireworks
Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop - 2006
Still haunted by the death of his young son, stalled in his writing career and overfond of the bottle, he finds himself abandoned by his wife for the summer - or, if he doesn't shape up, for good.
Love at First
Kate Clayborn - 2021
Standing beneath an apartment building balcony, he shared a perfect moment with a lovely, warm-voiced stranger. It’s a memory that’s never faded, though he’s put so much of his past behind him. Now an unexpected inheritance has brought Will back to that same address, where he plans to offload his new property and get back to his regular life as an overworked doctor. Instead, he encounters a woman, two balconies above, who’s uncannily familiar...No matter how surprised Nora Clarke is by her reaction to handsome, curious Will, or the whispered pre-dawn conversations they share, she won’t let his plans ruin her quirky, close-knit building. Bound by her loyalty to her adored grandmother, she sets out to foil his efforts with a little light sabotage. But beneath the surface of their feud is an undeniable connection. A balcony, a star-crossed couple, a fateful meeting—maybe it’s the kind of story that can't work out in the end. Or maybe, it’s the perfect second chance...A sparkling and tender novel from the acclaimed author of Love Lettering, full of bickering neighbors, surprise reunions, and the mysterious power of love that fans of Christina Lauren, Sarah Hogle, and Emily Henry will adore.
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
Eimear McBride - 2013
Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist. To read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation.Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny – and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.
Her Name Was Rose
Claire Allan - 2018
I read it in one go. I was totally hooked.’ MARIAN KEYES
‘Utterly addictive. Compulsive, twisty, tense.’ CLAIRE DOUGLAS, author of Local Girl Missing
Her name was Rose. You watched her die. And her death has created a vacancy.
When Emily lets a stranger step out in front of her, she never imagines that split second will change her life. But after Emily watches a car plough into the young mother – killing her instantly – she finds herself unable to move on.And then she makes a decision she can never take back.Because Rose had everything Emily had ever dreamed of. A beautiful, loving family, a great job and a stunning home. And now Rose’s husband misses his wife, and their son needs a mother. Why couldn’t Emily fill that space?But as Emily is about to discover, no one’s life is perfect … and not everything is as it seems.
'A powerful and emotional psychological thriller that will keep you guessing and leave you breathless.' C. L. TAYLOR, author of The Fear
‘I devoured it in a couple of days. Claire Allan managed to maintain an unsettling sense of unease that started at the very beginning and didn't let up at all.’ ELLE CROFT, author of The Guilty Wife
‘A psychological thriller with a heart: taut, emotionally challenging and unlike so many thrillers, each twist and turn is here because it deserves to be and not for the sake of it.’ JOHN MARRS, author of THE ONE
It Felt Like a Kiss
Sarra Manning - 2013
Great job, really good hair, loyal friends, loving family. It’s only her succession of lame duck boyfriends that ruin the picture.Oh, and the world-famous rock-star father she’s never met, who won’t even acknowledge her existence.Then Ellie’s perfect life is smashed to pieces when her secret is sold to the highest bidder and her name, face (and pictures of her bottom) are splashed across the tabloids. Suddenly everyone thinks she’s a gold-digging, sex-crazy, famewhore.Enter David Gold. Charming and handsome David Gold. On paper he’s even more perfect than Ellie, if only he wasn’t her father’s ruthlessly ambitious lawyer whose job is to manage the crisis – and her. He certainly doesn’t think that Ellie’s the innocent party and she doesn’t trust him at all. So why is it that every time they’re alone together, damage limitation is the last thing on their minds?