Read Ireland Book News - Issue 12
<-- [Back To Main Menu] Romantic Fiction
1. Evening Class by Maeve Binchy (7.60 Irish pounds/11 US dollars approximately) [Add To Basket]
The Italian evening class at Mountainview School is like hundreds of other starting up all over the city. But this one has its own special quality - as the focus for the varied hopes and dreams of teachers and students alike. And by the time the group sets off on the end-of-course trip to Italy, a surprising number of those hopes and dreams have come true. Another "Blockbuster Best-Seller" from the Queen of Irish Romantic Fiction!
2. The Big Wind by Beatrice Coogan (7.60 IRP/11 USD) [Add To Basket]
The classic novel spanning an entire generation of Irish history, set in the tumultuous times of the 19th century. From the Big Wind of 1839, the greatest storm ever recorded in Ireland, to the Great Famine and the land war between the starving Irish peasants and the Anglo-Saxon landlords, this novel brings alive the loves, cruelties and injustices of the time. An amazing feat of skilfully woven drama, romance and fact, The Big Wind has justly been compared to Gone with the Wind.
3. Promises, Promises by Patricia Scanlan ( 5.99 IRP/9 USD) [Add To Basket]
This novel covers a decade in the lives Chris Wallace, a skunk of the highest order, and of four Munroe women - Ellen Munroe, who loved him passionately; Miriam Munroe, who despised him and pleaded with Ellen to finish with him; Emma Munroe, the glamorous sophisticate married to Ellen's older brother and who couldn't stand Ellen; and Sheila Munroe, Ellen's mother and a pillar of society who was mortified by the scandal her daughter's affair was causing.
4. Perfectly Natural by Rose Doyle (5.99 IRP/9 USD) [Add To Basket]
Born in London to a young, unmarried Irishwoman, Sive Daniels never knew her natural father. After the violent death of Eileen, her enigmatic and much loved mother, Sive returns to the rural town in Kerry her mother left a quarter century before with only the baby she was carrying in her womb. In her search for the truth about her parents, Sive is unexpectedly helped by Abbie, a retired doctor of independent mind and compassionate nature. Better than anyone, Abbie knows the dark and unsavoury truths in that small community - long buried but not forgotten.
5. Remember Me by Mary McCarthy (5.99 IRP/9 USD) [Add To Basket]
This novel is a story about love, loss, hope, family and ambition. Sheila is haunted by her past and the baby she gave up for adoption. Rita, Sheila's mother, is a misguided woman whose interference could wreck her children's lives. Caroline is married to Sheila's brother, Sean. Their relationship is threatened by his jealousy. Mary, Sheila's lifelong friend is wondering will her marriage survive an affair and an abortion? Karen, an ambitious journalist, resents having been adopted but is determined to find and confront her natural mother.
6. Watermelon by Marian Keyes (6.50 IRP/10 USD) [Add To Basket]
James has absconded, leaving Claire with a new-born baby, a broken heart, heavier by nearly 30 pounds. In the absence of any better offer, Claire goes home to her family. To her beautiful sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. And in a story that's both hilarious and bittersweet, Claire gets better. In fact so much better that when James reappears into her life he's in for a bit of a surprise.
7. Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes (5.99 IRP/9 USD) [Add To Basket]
Lucy doesn't even have a boyfriend. But Mrs. Nolan has read her tarot cards and predicted that Lucy will be walking up the aisle before the leaves have fallen on the ground again. Lucy's friends Karen and Charlotte are appalled at the news. If Lucy leaves it could disrupt their lifestyles eating take-outs, drinking too much wine, bringing men home and never vacuuming. Lucy reassures them that she's far too busy arguing with her mother and taking care of her irresponsible father to get married. But then Lucy meets Gus, gorgeous and unreliable.
8. A Note of Parting by Liz Ryan (6.50 IRP/10 USD) [Add To Basket]
Aran Campion leaves the sleepy fishing village of Dunrathyway determined to make a life for herself far from the stifling uncertainties of provincial Ireland. Faraway London offers escape and opportunity and soon Aran has grasped both. With a full-time job, her music and her Saturday stall at Camden market, her life is too full for love and marriage that once seemed her only destiny. Until she meets a struggling young musician called Ben.
9. Waves Upon the Shore by Elaine Crowley (6.50 IRP/10 USD) [Add To Basket]
Another classic of historical romantic Irish fiction! Driven by the Famine from Kilgoran in 1847, Katy and Jamsie O'Hara seek new lives and fortune in New York - but find the tumbling tenements of the Lower East Side a far cry from the promised land of plenty - As Jamsie abandons New York for the railroad and the lure of gold, as Katy's childhood sweetheart Peadar struggles with his marriage and his conscience in aristocratic Virginia, as Bridget grows into a lovely young woman with a dangerous suitor, Katy's capacity for hard work and her gift for friendship sustain her in the fight to keep her family from starvation and the other perils of the teeming, corrupt city. And then Dr. David Purcell enters her life -
10. The Seduction of Mrs. Caine by Mary Ryan (5.99 IRP/9 USD) [Add To Basket]
Polly Caine has two adolescent sons, is married to Rory and lives in a housing estate in the Dublin suburbs. Despite having a degree in Fine Arts, Polly pours her energies into domesticity: the clean house, the cooking, the nurturing of her family. But a private rebellion, which she can hardly contain, is fermenting inside her -
This is just a small selection of Romantic Novels written by Irish authors and set in Ireland. A comprehensive list can be obtained online.
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