Book picks similar to
The Accidental Wife by Orla McAlinden
short-stories
ireland
irish
fiction
The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories
Patrick Taylor - 2014
Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly made most readers’ acquaintance in Patrick Taylor’s bestselling novel An Irish Country Doctor, he appeared in a series of humorous columns originally published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. These warm and wryly amusing vignettes provide an early glimpse at the redoubtable Dr. O’Reilly as he tends to the colourful and eccentric residents of Ballybucklebo, a cozy Ulster village nestled in the bygone years of the early sixties. Those seminal columns have been collected in The Wily O’Reilly: Irish Country Stories. In this convenient volume, Patrick Taylor’s legions of devoted fans can savor the enchanting origins of the Irish Country series . . . and newcomers to Ballybucklebo can meet O’Reilly for the very first time.An ex-Navy boxing champion, classical scholar, crypto-philanthropist, widower, and hard-working general practitioner, Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly is crafty and cantankerous in these charming slices of rural Irish life. Whether he’s educating a naive man of the cloth in the facts of life, dealing with chronic hypochondriacs and malingerers, clashing with pigheaded colleagues, or raising a pint in the neighborhood pub, the wily O’Reilly knows a doctor’s work is never done, even if some of his “cures” can’t be found in any medical text!
Ireland
Frank Delaney - 2004
The last practitioner of an honored, centuries-old tradition, the Seanchai enthralls his assembled audience for three evenings running with narratives of foolish kings and fabled saints, of enduring accomplishments and selfless acts -- until he is banished from the household for blasphemy and moves on. But these three incomparable nights have changed young Ronan forever, setting him on the course he will follow for years to come -- as he pursues the elusive, itinerant storyteller . . . and the magical tales that are no less than the glorious saga of his tenacious, troubled, and extraordinary isle.
Daughter Of Mine
Anne Bennett - 2007
Her husband is away fighting in the Second World War and she has regretfully sent her two young children away to her parents in Galway, knowing that they will be safe there. She's grateful for her job in munitions but not so happy when that means getting home in the blackout, dodging the bomb damage.Then Lizzie is attacked on one such journey. She comes around battered and bruised, unable to remember the full extent of the attack – but she fears the worst, and is right to. Turning to her family in desperation, she is told she has brought them nothing but disgrace. Yet help is at hand, from the most unlikely place…
The Asylum: A Jack Nightingale Short Story
Stephen Leather - 2017
A TV crew goes in to investigate and Jack Nightingale goes in with them. But the truth is more shocking than any of them realise, and not everyone will get out alive. The Asylum is a fast-paced supernatural story about 16,000 words long. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com and Jack Nightingale has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com
A Star Called Henry
Roddy Doyle - 1999
From his own birth and childhood on the streets of Dublin to his role as soldier (and lover) in the Irish Rebellion, Henry recounts his early years of reckless heroism and adventure. At once an epic, a love story, and a portrait of Irish history, A Star Called Henry is a grand picaresque novel brimming with both poignant moments and comic ones, and told in a voice that is both quintessentially Irish and inimitably Roddy Doyle's.
The Girl From Seaforth Sands
Katie Flynn - 2001
Bill and Isobel Logan scratch a living by selling their shrimps around the streets, but Amy, their youngest daughter, hates the smell, about which their neighbour, Paddy Keagan, constantly taunts her.When Isobel dies, Bill marries Suzie Keagan, a good-looking widow but lazy and selfish. The Keagans move in and tension begins to mount ...Amy is desperate to get away. She takes a room-share in the city centre but Liverpool is in turmoil with strikes and riots, and life is hard for young girls. Furthermore, Amy's visits home are spoiled by the presence of the hated Paddy ...A warm and moving story of young people and their loves and jealousies, played out against the hardship and humour of their Liverpool background.
The Secrets We Share
Emma Hannigan - 2015
Her son Max emigrated to the US years ago and she has yet to meet her teenage granddaughter, Nathalie...because Max and his mother no longer speak.Meanwhile Clara's daughter Ava is fighting for a piece of happiness. When Clara unexpectedly reaches out to Nathalie and her niece comes to visit, Ava's thoughts turn to Max, the brother she loved and lost. The brother whose abrupt disappearance left the Conway family heartbroken.When Nathalie finds a pile of torn, faded letters, she unlocks the door to Clara's past. Can Nathalie's time with her grandmother start to right some very old wrongs? And can Clara find a way to reach out to Max and thereby begin to heal the whole family once more?After all, some secrets are meant to be shared...
Kilbride House
Sheila Forsey - 2019
Victoria Goulding, a Protestant, falls in love with Canice Meagher, born on the Blasket Islands and a Roman Catholic. To be together they must elope. Before their escape, the hand of fate plays its cards and changes their lives irrevocably.Sixty-three years later, in the leafy suburbs of New York, Edith Goulding, Victoria’s sister, has died. Edith left Ireland in the winter of 1955 all those years ago, never to return. In her will she has insisted that her daughter Catherine and granddaughter Lainey visit Kilbride.Kilbride House, despite all its grandeur, holds shocking memories within its walls – memories that have slipped through the cracks of time. As the ghosts awaken the lies begin to unravel, and everything is altered. The past cannot remain untold.
The Mammy
Brendan O'Carroll - 1994
Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection. Forced to be mother, father, and referee to her battling clan, the ever-resourceful Agnes Browne occasionally finds a spare moment to trade gossip and quips with her best pal Marion Monks (alias "The Kaiser") and even finds herself pursued by the amorous Frenchman who runs the local pizza parlor. Like the novels of Roddy Doyle, The Mammy features pitch-perfect dialogue, lightning wit, and a host of colorful characters. Earthy and exuberant, the novel brilliantly captures the brash energy and cheerful irreverence of working-class Irish life.
This Hostel Life
Melatu Uche Okorie - 2018
From a day in the life of women queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel to a young black woman's depiction of everyday racism in Ireland, her nuanced writing shines a light on the injustice of the direct provision system and on the insidious racism experienced by migrant women living in Ireland. A third story, set in a Nigeria of the past, tells of a woman's life destroyed by an ancient superstition and her fierce determination to carry on, a quality Okorie believes is universally shared by women.
Delaney's People: A Novel In Small Stories
Beth Duke - 2011
Delaney is one of them."When you meet Delaney Robinson, she is a two-year-old with a serious attachment to her wonderful great-grandmother, who guides her through life with the wisdom of a nonagenarian. Margaret's reminiscences, along with the rest you will read, tell the story of how this adorable little girl came to be.There is murder, mayhem, humor, romance--and a bit of heartbreak. The stories are about her parents, grandparents, distant ancestors, and family friends, from Delaney's Irish forebears and how they settled in Alabama to a chapter written entirely from the point of view of a Confederate battle sword hanging on her grandfather's wall.
Max Under the Stars
Theresa Weir - 2010
Follow Max on his lifelong quest to produce the perfect novel. Touching, irreverent, hilarious and sad. Every writer should read this story. Every writer will relate to Max. please note: This is a SHORT STORY consisting of 2,500 words.
The UnAmericans
Molly Antopol - 2014
An actor, phased out of Hollywood for his Communist ties during McCarthyism, tries to share a meaningful moment with his son. An Israeli soldier comes of age when his brother is maimed on their communal farm. A gallerist, swept up by the 1970s dissident art movement, begins smuggling paintings out of Moscow and curating underground shows in her Jerusalem home. This is a rare collection as accomplished at capturing our soaring triumphs as it is our crippling defeats--a hopeful reminder that we are all closer and more capable than we sometimes feel.
The Tsar of Love and Techno
Anthony Marra - 2015
A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts. In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.The leopard --Granddaughters --The Grozny Tourist Bureau --A prisoner of the Caucasus --The tsar of love and techno --Wolf of White Forest --Palace of the people --A temporary exhibition --The end
The Trick to Time
Kit de Waal - 2018
She crafts beautiful, handmade wooden dolls in her workshop in a sleepy seaside town. Every doll is special. Every doll has a name. And every doll has a hidden meaning, from a past Mona has never accepted.Each new doll takes Mona back to a different time entirely - back to Birmingham, in 1972. Back to the thrill of being a young Irish girl in a big city, with a new job and a room of her own in a busy boarding house. Back to her first night out in town, where she meets William, a gentle Irish boy with an easy smile and an open face. Back to their whirlwind marriage, and unexpected pregnancy. And finally, to the tragedy that tore them apart.