Dublin, 1952. When Mary Kate Ryan receives a surprise inheritance from the woman who abandoned her as a tiny baby, she’s stunned. All her life, she has longed to know why her mother disappeared, and now she’s devastated to realize that every lonely night she spent without a home or family of her own, her mother knew exactly where she was. Mary Kate is about to refuse the money when she sees a beautiful, deserted house for sale and something sparks in her heart. She will reawaken it, as the...

The Phelans have owned Mossgrove for generations. The small, rural Irish farm has been the pride of them all until Ned's wife, Martha, arrives and begins to undermine generations of hard work and happiness. She resents the deep history of the place and sets about making it her own, shutting out what is left of Ned's family. She is particularly jealous of Ned's sister, Kate, a local nurse and doting aunt to Martha's children. When Ned dies suddenly, Martha puts Mossgrove up for sale in hope...

Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world. When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain and as she grows from an impulsive child into ...

Ireland, 1901: The workhouse gates clanged shut behind us, as me and the mammy walked down the hill towards the town. I was six years old and leaving the only home I had ever known … When Cissy Ryan’s real mother comes to claim her from the workhouse, it’s not how she imagined. Her family’s tumbledown cottage has ice on the inside of its windows and is in an isolated, poverty-stricken village in the muddy Irish countryside. But when Cissy is allowed to help neighbour Colm Doyle and his hor...

In the darkest days of war, can she find a place to call home?1939: When tragedy strikes in the East End of London, thirteen-year-old Ivy Connell and her little brother Fred find themselves orphaned. Holding Fred’s small hand, she knows she must keep him safe. So Ivy decides to leave the bombed-out streets of the city in search of the Irish village her Daddy used to tell her so many stories about.Somehow, she’s going to get...

Mary Kate takes a deep breath as she stands outside 24 Merrion Square with its red front door and pretty rose garden. Grieving from her recent heartbreak, will returning to the Irish boarding house be the second chance she so desperately needs?Dublin, 1956: When Mary Kate Ryan loses the love of her life, she’s not sure how she can keep going. Feeling completely lost, she allows her friend Moira Kent to persuade her...

At Mossgrove, the Phelan family farm, long-time hired hand Jack plays peacemaker as widow Martha Phelan battles her young son, Peter, who wants to modernise the farm. Tensions on the home front are bitter enough, but at the Conway farm across the river, more trouble is brewing. Slovenly Matt Conway feels trapped and abuses his wife, Biddy. Spurred on by a misguided belief that the Phelans got the best of him in a loan to buy land, he keeps vigil at a fence post plotting revenge ...

Following his brutish father's death, young Danny Conway strives to rescue the family farm from ruin. When all seems hopeless, help comes from the most unexpected quarter. A story of grief and trying to cope with loss, but also of resilience in the face of family tragedy. No one knows the minutiae of country life as Alice Taylor does, and again she displays her unique ability to capture its rhythms and cadences.

In The Drowning Sea, Sarah Stewart Taylor returns to the critically acclaimed world of Maggie D’arcy with another atmospheric mystery so vivid listeners will smell the salt in the air and hear the wind on the cliffs.For the first time in her adult life, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is unemployed. No cases to focus on, no leads to investigate, just a whole summer on a remote West Cork peninsula with her teenage daughter Lilly and her ...

Sarah Stewart Taylor is known for her atmospheric portrayal of an American detective in Ireland, and her critically acclaimed series returns with A Stolen Child.After months of training, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D'arcy is now officially a Garda. She's finally settling into life in Ireland, and so is her teenage daughter, Lilly. Maggie may not be a detective yet, but she's happy with her community policing assignment in Dublin's Portobel...

Communicating Intimate Health presents an edited collection of original, empirical research, personal essays, autoethnography, critical reviews, and theoretical work showcasing advances in intimate health research from the field of communication studies. Intimate health includes sexual and reproductive health, sexual activity, sexuality, gender, and reproductive justice. The contributors vulnerably engage subjects including: parent-child, partner, patient-provider, and larger societal disc...