It's the summer of 1974 and Jamie McCloone, a County Derry farmer, is looking for a wife. Poor Jamie: he knows so very little about the fairer sex. But help is at hand. His amiable neighbor, Rose, has spotted a Lonely Hearts advert in the local paper, and urges him to respond to it.
The result is a meeting of absolute opposites. Farmer Jamie with his cavalier attitude to personal hygiene. Lydia Devine, rector's daughter and prim schoolteacher, for whom everything must be folded neatly and laid in its proper place-including her ideal spouse.
The Misremembered Man is a beautifully rendered portrait of rural life. It delights with its cast of authentic characters and gentle humor.
Yet the tears it evokes are not always tears of laughter. This vivid portrayal of the universal search for love brings with it a darker tale-for Jamie's quest is, in essence, a search for a lost innocence, and for the childhood that was so brutally stolen from him.
In this exquisite first novel, Christina McKenna lays bare a sinister period of Ireland's history-one which many would prefer to leave hidden, and safe from investigative eyes.
In this suspenseful novel, bestselling author Christina McKenna questions whether anyone can ever truly be free of the darkness within us all. Rita-Mae has lived in fear for as long as she can remember.
Fear of being alone, fear of her past and, above all, fear of her husband, Harry. Until she spots an advertisement for a vacant cottage in a small town in Northern Ireland. She makes her escape filled with hope, ready to start a new life in a new home, free from the pain of her past. But her place of refuge may not be as safe-or as anonymous-as she thought. In another small town, Dorrie wakes up unaware of where she is or how she got there.
Adrift in a world for which she has no explanation, she needs to find answers quickly-before her shadowy past catches up with her. Walled in by secrets and with no one to trust, both Rita-Mae and Dorrie are unsure how to move forward.
Can each woman face her inner demons and confront a menacing presence from the past once and for all? Or will the past unravel their second chance at life?
When Ruby Clare's father was alive, they toiled together happily on their dairy farm in Northern Ireland. Since his death, Ruby—thirty-three, plump but comely—has been forced indoors and made a domestic drudge for Martha, her endlessly critical mother, and her prettier younger sisters, May and June. But everything changes when Ruby finds her late grandmother's old case in the attic. Among its strange contents: a curious, handmade volume called The Book of Light. As Ruby delves into its mysterious pages, she's enticed into a most beguiling world, whose allure and magnetic power she finds irresistible. Martha, convinced that her newly empowered daughter is going crazy, enlists the help of the kindly parish priest, and then psychiatrist Henry Shevlin. Henry appears imperturbable, yet is inwardly reeling from his wife's unexplained disappearance the previous year. As Ruby undergoes therapy, she meets local bachelor farmer Jamie McCloone. Through their shared loneliness and isolation the two find the courage to connect. But will Ruby's mother allow her daughter the happiness she so richly deserves? The Godforsaken Daughter is an unforgettable peek into small-town life in Ireland's recent past. It's a glorious successor to McKenna's first two “Tailorstown” novels, The Misremembered Man and The Disenchanted Widow.
It’s the summer of 1981. Newly widowed Bessie Halstone is fleeing Belfast with her young son, Herkie. She’s wrongly suspected of pocketing £10,000, the loot from a heist carried out by Packie, her late (and unmourned) husband. Bessie has plans. She longs to make a fresh start. But first she must reach the safety of her sister’s home, in County Sligo, to borrow money for the trip. She doesn’t make it. Car trouble forces her to sojourn in Tailorstown, a sleepy rural community. Her plans are put on hold as she decides to lay low for a while. She’ll need cash. She finds work as a housekeeper for the handsome but mysterious parish priest. In the meantime, Lorcan Strong, an artist and a native of Tailorstown, is summoned home. With reluctance, he returns to the place where he feels almost a stranger, a town he has long outgrown. A chance meeting with young Herkie Halstone leads Lorcan into the world of the disenchanted Bessie — and into a grave danger that has pursued them both from Belfast. The Disenchanted Widow is an unforgettable peek into small-town life in Ireland’s recent past. It’s a glorious successor to McKenna’s first “Tailorstown” novel, The Misremembered Man.
