Showing results by narrator "Aoife McMahon" in All Categories

The story of a relationship that everyone thought was forever and which is now in danger of being for never, The Break is about getting older and staying in love when life, real life, is trying to pull you apart.

Orphaned as a young child, Mirin O'Malley has been brought up by her grandparents on their isolated, rambling estate Hob's Hallow. Long ago her family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer, the terrifying creatures who live in the depths of the sea: safety for their merchant ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and their fortunes have suffered as a result. When Mirin's grandfather dies, her grandmother puts in train a plan to restore their glory - but at the price of Mirin's freedom.

When Lily McDermott walks in to find her husband of just three months in bed with a famous actress, life as she knows it is over. Lily thinks things can't get any worse when she sees photos of her husband and his new lover splashed across the glossy magazine pages, but when she loses her job, too, she is at her lowest ebb and turns to baking to soothe her soul. Wounded and broken, she has to try to pick herself up again with the help of her best friend, Frankie. With her encouragement, Lily decides to turn her hobby into a business and sets up Baked with Love.

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life-changing begins. Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can't.

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a distribution warehouse and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them.

One day, sitting in traffic, Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life. But in this event is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, wrenching her whole family apart. For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

Frances is 21 years-old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend. When they are interviewed and then befriended by Melissa, a well-known journalist who is married to Nick, an actor, they enter a world of beautiful houses, raucous dinner parties and holidays in Provence. But when Frances and Nick get unexpectedly closer, the sharply witty and emotion-averse Frances is forced to honestly confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time.

When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to the summer she spent waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant when she was a young college student—the plush splendor of the dining rooms, the wild parties after service, the sizzling tension of the kitchens. But Hannah also remembers how the attention from Daniel soon morphed from kindness into something darker. Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel tries to understand how his life is now completely out of his control

Fans of Marian Keyes, Lisa Jewell and Santa Montefiore will love Sunday Times best-selling author Sheila O'Flanagan's The Missing Wife. Have you ever wanted to disappear? When Imogen Naughton vanishes, everyone who knows her is shocked. She has a perfect marriage. Her handsome husband treats her like a princess. She's always said how lucky she is. So why has she left? And how will she survive without Vince?

Sent away to convent school at the age of six, Irini McGuire has never really known her celebrated archaeologist mother, Bridget, who lives on the paradise island of Santorini. So, when Irini receives news that Bridget has been injured at a dig and is in coma she knows it is time to return to the island of her birth. Discovering her mother's notes, and driven by rumours that her mother's injury was no accident, Irini starts to reveal the dark secrets behind her family's separation. Can she unearth the truth about her parents and her past before it is too late?

When Declan Lorne, the last remaining knight in Ireland, dies suddenly, an ancient title passes with him. But his estate on Ireland’s rugged south-west coast is left to his three daughters. The two eldest, Ottie and Pip, inherit in line with expectations, but to everyone’s surprise - and dismay - it is the errant baby of the family, Willow, who gets the castle. Why her? Something unknown - something terrible - made her turn her back on her family three years earlier, escaping to Dublin and vowing never to return....

You'll be wincing in recognition and scratching your head in incredulity, but like Marian herself you won't be able to stop laughing at the sheer delightful absurdity that is modern life - because each and every one of us is clearly making it up as we go along. She has wonderful and tickling words of advice for those fast approaching 50.

Joanne Phillips’ ordeal began aged 13 when she was gang-raped in her bedroom by local boys. Following the trauma, she dropped out of school, was befriended by an older man and was forced into prostitution aged 16. Over the next six years, she was raped by over 500 men, starved, beaten, and transported around the country to brothels. Forced to have sex with men from all walks of life including lawyers, stockbrokers, doctors, a parish councillor, Joanne was even made to have sex with her former school headteacher—who didn’t recognise her.

Late at night, two powerful men meet in a secret location to discuss a long nurtured plan about to come to fruition. One is desperate to know there is nothing standing in their way - the other assures him everything is taken care of. Hours later, a high-ranking government official called Ryan Finnegan is brutally slain in the most secure building in Ireland - Leinster House, the seat of parliament. Inspector Tom Reynolds and his team are called in to uncover the truth behind the murder.

Cathy Connolly discovers the bones of a baby concealed in the hem of an old wedding dress. When the dress' original owner, Lavinia Grant, is found dead in a Dublin suburb, Cathy is drawn deep into a complex web of secrets and lies spun by three generations of women. Meanwhile, a fugitive killer has already left two dead in execution style killings across the Atlantic - and now he's in Dublin with old scores to settle. Can the team track him down before he kills again?

It's 1975. A baby, minutes old, is forcibly taken from its devastated mother. In 2010, the body of an elderly woman is found in a Dublin public park in the depths of winter. Detective Inspector Tom Reynolds is working the case. He's convinced the murder is linked to historical events that took place in the notorious Magdalene Laundries. Reynolds and his team follow the trail to an isolated convent in the Irish countryside. But once inside, it becomes disturbingly clear that the killer is amongst them....

A fatal fire in a holiday let on Slievemore, Achill Island, leaves one person dead and another missing. Deemed arson, DS Lucy Golden and her team are tasked with solving the murder and locating the missing woman, Moira Delaney. As the case develops, the pressure builds when it transpires that Moira's father is a gangland figure, a suspect in three unsolved murders. If Lucy doesn't uncover what happened that morning in Slievemore, he will deploy his own men to deal out his sort of justice.

Amanda King and Tess Cuffe are strangers who share the same Georgian house, but their lives couldn't be more different. Amanda seems to have it all, absolute perfection. She projects all the accoutrements of a lady who lunches. Sadly, the reality is a soulless home, an unfaithful husband and a very lonely heart. By comparison, in the basement flat, unwanted tenant Tess has spent a lifetime hiding and shutting her heart to love. It takes a bossy doctor, a handsome gardener, a pushy teenager and an abandoned cat to show these two women that sometimes letting go is the first step to moving forward and new friendships can come from the most unlikely situations.

It's June 2008 and 21-year-old Adam Lattimer vanishes, presumed dead. The strain of his disappearance breaks his already fragile family. Ten years later, with his mother deceased and siblings scattered across the globe, Adam turns up unannounced at the family home. His siblings return reluctantly to Spanish Cove, but Adam's reappearance poses more questions than answers. The past is a tangled web of deceit. And, as tension builds, it's apparent somebody has planned murderous revenge for the events of 10 years ago.

On Doogort East Bog, Achill Island, a body is found. The close community is stunned to learn that it's Lisa Moran, a popular teacher who disappeared two days earlier. DS Lucy Golden is assigned to the case. For her, it's personal. As an Achill native, she knows that sometimes great evil can lurk in plain sight. Having moved back from Dublin, she has spent the last 10 years trying to prove herself to her colleagues after her husband was jailed for fraud. This is her chance to put the past behind her.