Lost Child: Joffe Books

A compelling novel of love, heartbreak and family.

May has just started a new life with Nathan and his son from his first marriage. May meets a recently orphaned girl, Elva, at the children’s home where she teaches. She develops a close relationship with Elva and together with her husband, she draws the child into their loving family circle. The bereaved girl blossoms in the easy affection of the new family.

But there are clouds on the horizon: Nathan’s ex-wife is intent on disrupting the situation and complex ties of obligation and guilt threaten to destroy May’s job, marriage and everyone she loves.

This is a gripping, sometimes harrowing novel of a family fighting for survival.

 

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Out of the Blue: Joffe Books

A gripping novel of love lost and found.

When Liv Callaghan inherits her grandmother’s cottage in Ireland, it offers escape from London and her marriage to her alcoholic husband, Douglas. She travels back to the place where she spent happy childhood holidays and enjoys the challenge of living in the remote cottage. But looming over her is a family secret that curtailed the summer visits of her youth. She meets up again unexpectedly with her first love, Aidan. He is now married, with a child. They reignite their relationship with terrible consequences.

Can you ever go back and what are the consequences for those close to you?  This is a novel about love, family, secrets and betrayal.

‘Loved this gripping book. Well-written and the characters are very real. What happens when you return to your first love? You’ll enjoy finding out in this page-turning women’s fiction.’ – Beth Boyd

 

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Coming of Age: Joffe Books

This is a gripping novel of intrigue, loss, friendship, love and growing up.

Martina is a teenager struggling to cope with the loss of her father. Her new friendship with wealthy Cecelia Buchanan offers her a lifeline. The older woman opens up a new world of elegance and beauty for Martina and encourages her artistic talents. But Cecelia shares her flat with the handsome Luca, a young man whose motives are not always clear. This is a story about that moment in life when you realise that the adult world is not always what it seems; it explores all the joy and pain of first loss and love.

 

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Araby: Harper Collins/Fourth Estate

The bittersweet story of a London-Irish family with an infuriating mother, a mutinous son and a final truce.

Rory Keenan has always found his mother embarrassingly eccentric; Kitty has a huge appetite – for food, for imaginary illnesses and for strange hobbies. The story moves between Rory’s childhood in London and the present, in Ireland. Kitty is dying and Rory, now a grown man, begins to come to terms with his confused feelings for her. Subtle, vivid and down-to-earth, Araby is an outstanding vision of life, love and death.

‘A tenderly funny and genuinely moving piece. I loved it’ – Time Out

‘Funny and beguiling’ – Daily Telegraph

 

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Marble Heart: Harper Collins/Fourth Estate

Set in London and reflecting events in Belfast in the 1970s, this is a story of female friendship, betrayal and murder in a twisting psychological thriller.

Joan Douglas has a tentative grip on the world. She is a carer, employed to look after Nina Rawle, a sophisticated woman who has been struck by illness. Nina has hidden motives for employing Joan. The story reveals that Nina has a tangled past in Ireland which casts long shadows on the present. How, and more importantly, why Nina is determined to reveal her secret history makes for a tense and complex tale.

‘Marble Heart proves itself to be an excellent lesson in the difference between cleverness and wisdom’ – The Times

‘Mulrooney slows the pace leading to the shocking denouement by deftly layering each chapter with different character’s voices. She shows herself to be an acute observer of all the intricacies that comprise female friendship’ – Time Out

‘Focuses on coming to terms with the consequences of tragedy, truth, immorality and mortality’ – Canberra Times