It is time to return from Dublin, London and New York to Rossmore and the old stone house overlooking the Irish Sea where they grew up. But ancient jealousies surface as each sister confronts the past and the decisions they have made.For work-driven Kate it is time to take stock of her role as a high-flying ambitious lawyer and single parent; life is a battle between work and looking after Molly with little time for a proper relationship. Even Patrick, the man she once fell for, has ended up marrying her sister. Beautiful and intense Moya must take a hard look at her marriage to the charming but unfaithful Patrick and consider her own worth. For wild child Romy who has travelled the world and hasn't put a foot on Irish soil for years, it is time to finally stop running and find the courage to confront her family.A good and caring mother, Maeve Dillon has somehow over the years labelled each of her three daughters: Moya the beautiful, Kate the brains, and Romy, the bold and wild one. Now it is finally time for all three to break out of the box.

    Their father went away to sea never to return, and then their mother falls victim to the typhus sweeping through Liverpool. Regarded as orphans by the authorities, May and Gus are sent to the Brownlow Hill Workhouse. Like all workhouses, Brownlow is the last resort for the poor and the destitute. May and Gus will have to rely on each other more than ever if they are to survive the hardships to come...

    The story is a simple one, but told in a way that keeps you reading as much for the elegance of the telling as for the action it describes. Here is prose with a light, sunny breeze blowing through it... Why can't more people write like this? A little gem.' - The Age'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald'Kim Kelly's Wild Chicory is told with wit, warmth and courage. It's an ode to the splendour to be found in a simple life and the hope for something better, even if you must risk everything to achieve it.' - Newtown Review of BooksWild Chicory is a novella that takes the reader on an immigrant journey from Ireland to Australia in the early 1900s, along threads of love, family, war and peace. It's a slice of ordinary life rich in history, folklore and fairy tale, and a portrait of the precious relationship between a granddaughter, Brigid, and her grandmother, Nell.From the windswept, emerald coast of County Kerry, to the slums of Sydney's Surry Hills; and from the bitter sectarian violence of Ulster, to tranquillity of rural New South Wales, Brigid weaves her grandmother's tales into a small but beautiful epic of romance and tragedy, of laughter and the cold reality of loss. It's Nell's tales, tall and true, that spur Brigid to write her own, too.Ultimately, it's a story of finding your feet in a new land - be that a new country, or a new emotional space - and the wonderful trove of narrative we carry with us wherever we might go.

    Political crimes were ‘special’, whereas theft, robbery and even murder, no matter how terrible, were ‘ordinary’.Dublin, June 1887: the mutilated bodies of a man and a child are discovered in Phoenix Park and Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow steps up to investigate. Cynical and tired, Swallow is a man living on past successes in need of a win.In the background, the city is sweltering in a long summer heatwave, a potential gangland war is simmering as the chief lieutenants of a dying crime boss size each other up and the castle administration want the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden jubilee to pass off without complication. Underneath it all, the growing threat of anti-British radicals is never far away. With the Land War at its height, the priority is to contain ‘special’ crime. But these murders appear to be ‘ordinary’ and thus of lesser priority. When the evidence suggests high-level involvement, and as the body count increases, Swallow must navigate the waters of foolish superiors, political directives and frayed tempers to investigate the crime, find the true murderer and deliver justice.A June Of Ordinary Murders captures the life and essence of Dublin in the 1880s and draws the reader on a thrilling journey of murder and intrigue

    It embraces a wide range of social milieux, from the miseries of the tenements to the cultivated, bourgeois Bradshaws. It introduces a memorable cast of characters: the main protagonist, Fitz, a model of the hard-working, loyal and abused trade unionist; the isolated, well-meaning and ineffectual Fr O'Connor; the wretched and destitute Rashers Tierney. In the background hovers the enormous shadow of Jim Larkin, Plunkett's real-life hero.Strumpet City's popularity derives from its realism and its naturalistic presentation of traumatic historical events. There are clear heroes and villians. The book is informed by a sense of moral outrage at the treatment of the locked-out trade unionists, the indifference and evasion of the city's clergy and middle class and the squalor and degradation of the tenement slums.

    

    It’s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death. It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin’s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black’s debut marks him as a true master of the form.

    This Boxed Set of cozy historical mysteries is the perfect gift for readers of any age and is a welcome companion to Pilfered Promises, the fifth book in the series. Maids of Misfortune (over 1400 reviews, 4.2 stars) introduces Annie Fuller, a young widow who runs the O’Farrell Street boarding house and supplements her income by giving financial and domestic advice as Madam Sibyl. When one of Madam Sibyl’s clients dies in mysterious circumstances, Annie goes undercover as domestic servant to find out the truth about his death. Against his better judgment, Nate Dawson, the Voss family lawyer finds himself drawn into helping in her investigations, alternatively fascinated and frustrated by Annie’s independent nature. Uneasy Spirits (over 600 reviews, 4.3 stars) finds Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson, assisted by the boarding house maid, Kathleen, delving into the world of 19th century Spiritualism in order to expose a fraudulent trance medium. She will soon find there are as many secrets as there are spirits swirling around the séance table. Some of those secrets will threaten the foundation of her career as Madam Sibyl and the future of her relationship with Nate Dawson, and, in time, they will threaten her very life itself. In Bloody Lessons (over 350 reviews, 4.4 stars), Annie Fuller has been called in by her beau, Nate Dawson to find out who has been sending poison pen letters about the teachers of San Francisco. The case becomes personal when they discover that Nate’s sister, Laura, may be one of the teachers under attack. In Deadly Proof (over 350 reviews, 4.3 stars) Annie helps her fiancé, Nate Dawson, with a troubling case—defending a female typesetter who is accused of killing her employer. Complicating matters, Nate’s sister decides to take the investigation into her own hands.

    So at twenty-one she escapes to London to train as a nurse, where she gathers many admirers - none more dashing than RAF officer Sandy Redfern, with whom she falls in love.But the coming of war, with the chaos of the Blitz, brings upheavals and unforeseen entanglements. On hearing of Sandy's reckless affair with a married woman, a heartbroken Lily throws herself into her work. Then further changes in circumstances bring her to a busy RAF hospital in Hampshire, where a faithful childhood sweetheart persuades her to become engaged to him.And then fate brings Sandy Redfern back into her life, physically scarred by burns and inwardly embittered. What of their once passionate love and her present commitment? Can the past ever be recaptured?

    In UNCLE SILAS (1864) Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menaced by unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn, is a 17 year old orphan left in the care of her fearful uncle, Silas. Together with his boorish son and a sinister French governess, Silas plots to kill Maud and claim her fortune. The novel established Le Fanu as a master of horror fiction.