Showing results by narrator "Caroline Lennon" in All Categories

It’s 1913, and the time has come for Lily to leave primary school in Sligo and start her job in the Big House - Lissadell. Her employers, the Gore-Booths, are kind, but life as a young housemaid is hard: Lily misses her home and family, she works long days and has to learn how to get on with her sullen roommate, Nellie. Then Maeve, the daughter of Constance Markievicz and niece of the Gore-Booths, comes to visit. She decides to paint a portrait of Lily, and a friendship begins.

Mother-of-one Saoirse is just about holding it all together - combining part time work with the school run, while her husband, David, gets to focus on his career. But when David loses his job, everything has to change. With no hesitation, Saoirse suggests she takes on the role of main breadwinner. After all, how hard can it be? But there’s a problem with keeping too many balls in the air - eventually one is bound to drop.

A widow spends weeks haunting a cemetery, desperate to track down an unknown woman who keeps leaving flowers on her husband’s grave; A daughter searches a foreign city for her father, trying to understand why he disappeared forty-five years ago; A former gay lover of Roger Casement stands among the crowds at his state funeral in 1965, paying silent homage to the closeted world they were forced to inhabit at the dawning of the Irish State. A writer at a book launch comes face to face with the person secretly responsible for his success.

Emily is back in Ireland after nine long years away from home, when she sees him. Her ex-husband, Rob, holding hands with a five-year-old girl. A girl that should be hers. Over a decade before, Emily and Rob were exhausted but ecstatic new parents, delighting in the arrival of their longed-for baby daughter, Alannah. But tragedy was just a few weeks away, and in their unfathomable grief, Emily and Rob's marriage fell apart. Emily moved to New Zealand to get away – but returning to Dublin nearly a decade later for her mother's funeral, she finds herself face-to-face with her past.

On the idyllic Pine Road, three women are looking for a fresh start.... Martha was a force of nature, but since moving to Dublin under mysterious circumstances, she can't seem to find her footing. Robin was the 'it' girl in school. Now she's back at her parents' with her four-year-old, vowing that her ex is out of the picture for good. Edie has the perfect life, but she longs for a baby, the acceptance of her neighbours, and to find out why her dream husband is avoiding their dream future.

It’s summer on Whisper Island. Ex-cop-turned-private-investigator Maggie Doyle is looking forward to sun, fun, and romance. Instead, she gets bills, an assault allegation, and a busted wrist. To add insult to injury, there’s a movie being filmed on the island, and Maggie’s diva sister has been cast in it—her debut role. While other residents clamor for parts as extras, Maggie wants nothing to do with the shoot. But when hotshot director Con Ryder asks Maggie to investigate a series of suspicious accidents on the movie set, she can’t afford to refuse.

1980: Josephine flees her home in Ireland to start a new life in London - but can't leave her traumatic childhood behind. Seventeen years and two children later, her sister calls: their mother is dying and wants to see Josephine. It's a summons she can't refuse....

This latest instalment in the popular series sees Lily finally on her way to realising her dream of becoming a teacher. Nellie's older sister, Johanna, starts walking out with Harry the footman, and is extremely worried when he enlists and goes off to fight in World War I. He send letters to the girls from the front and tells them all about the Christmas Day truce in 1914...but then a telegram comes. Harry is missing, presumed dead. Will he return to Lissadell, safe and sound?

Winning is a good thing, isn’t it? Everyone in first year is really excited about the big prize in the English essay competition - four months in France - and Alice has a good chance of winning. Megan loves writing essays, but she doesn’t want to win - go away for four months alone? No way! She doesn’t want Alice to go either - why would anyone want to go abroad without her best friend?

When her husband, David, announces he’s been offered a job in New York, Saoirse is thrilled. The glamour of the big city, the shopping, the culture, not to mention the free Manhattan apartment and business-class air fare - what’s not to like? There’s just the small matter of making it work for their daughter, five-year-old Anna, who isn’t so keen to leave her friends and school behind. The Big Apple in the middle of summer isn’t quite the holiday Saoirse envisaged, and with David away with work, solo ex-pat parenting pushes Saoirse to her limits.

Any wedding is a big deal in the small village of Kilbane - even more so when the bride is a famous fashion model. It's also good for business; Siobhan O'Sullivan's bistro will be catering the three-day affair. When the drunken best man is disinvited, Siobhan's own beau, Macdara, gladly steps in. But finding the original best man murdered in the woods casts a pall over the nuptials. And when a second member of the wedding party is poisoned, Macdara goes from being best man to prime suspect.

St Brigid's Island lies off the west coast of Ireland, and by 1960 it is a community in decline. It possesses no modern conveniences; there are also no doctors, priests, running water or electricity. The government wants the island evacuated, but those who have refused to go cling hard to their traditions. Among those remaining families are two sisters, Rose and Emer. Rose is beautiful, blessed with fertility and a deep love for her husband, but her sister, Emer, is cursed with both being unlovely and possessing a punishing gift.

Grace sees her boyfriend Henry everywhere. 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 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....

Marianne has worked hard to provide her children with a secure and loving home. But then comes the news that will change everything: Her husband, Dominic, has been found dead. As she and the police delve deeper into the circumstances surrounding Dominic's death, they discover a web of lies that conceals a shady double life. Little does she realise that the worst is yet to come....

Inheritance changes everything, as Ella Kennedy soon discovers when her father dies and the hundred-acre farm she has grown up on and run for years in the Wexford countryside is no longer hers. Hurt and angry following a fight with her brother, Ella leaves her home and people she cares for and joins her wild cousin Kitty in Dublin. Exiled in the city, Ella is forced to make a new life for herself like the other country girls. She tries to forget the farm, pushing all thoughts of Sean Flanagan, the neighbour she had loved, from her mind.

Twenty essays on Irish women, historical and contemporary, who have defied cultural norms around femininity and achieved great things. The subjects include Irish women from Queen Medb to Eileen Gray, from Constance Markievicz to Sonia O’Sullivan, covering stateswomen, artists, writers, activists and rebels of all kinds. Written by multi-award-winning author and first Laureate na nÓg (Irish Children’s Laureate) Siobhán Parkinson. Perfect for use in schools as well as for leisure listening, this collection celebrates the role of women in Ireland’s changing society.

In 1898 three young girls leave a Dublin orphanage to enter a life of domestic service. They are placed in the home of Captain Charles Whitmore. His wife, Georgina, desperate to break free from a violent marriage. Then an organisation that helps women escape abuse makes Georgina an offer. They propose that her house should become a school to train women for employment in the American West. Can the orphan maids dare dream of a better life for themselves?

Eva Gordon doesn't like mysteries - so when new girl Aretta hurries away after school every day, Eva's determined to find out why. And Aretta’s not the only person Eva’s interested in - a friend’s granny has been parted from her beloved dog, so Eva decides to cheer her up. But can she? Eva finds that some things are too big and complicated for one girl to deal with alone...but she has a talent for bringing people together, and together people can do almost anything!

Ex-cop-turned-PI Maggie Doyle is stuck chaperoning a group of bratty summer camp kids on an archaeological dig on Whisper Island. After a day of fart jokes, fidget spinners, and fistfights, Maggie's regretting volunteering - and then one of her feral charges unearths a skeleton. At first, it looks like a cold case, but the situation takes a sinister turn when a member of the excavation team winds up dead.

In 1920s inner city Dublin Tenements, Ivy Rose Murphy struggles to survive in the harsh poverty-stricken environment she was born into. She is trying to adapt to her new role as a married woman. There are those jealous of the improvements she has managed to make in her life. To Ivy it seems everyone wants a piece of her. Ivy's friends gather around to offer support, but somehow Ivy is the one who gives hope to them.