Showing results by narrator "Aoife McMahon" in All Categories

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.

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.

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?

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.

981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings tend not to stay kings for long. Gormflaith also has a secret. She is one of the Fomorians, an immortal race who can do fire-magic. She has kept her powers hidden at all costs, for there are other immortals in this world – like the Tuatha DE Danann, a race of warriors who are sworn to kill Fomorians.

Aoife MacMurchada is just 14 years old when her father Diarmit, King of Leinster, is brutally deposed, and her family is forced to flee Southern Ireland into English exile. Diarmit seeks help from King Henry II, an alliance that leads him to the charismatic Richard de Clare, lord of Striguil, a man dissatisfied with his lot and open to new horizons. Diarmit promises Richard wealth, lands, and Aoife's hand in marriage in return for his aid, but Aoife, has her own thoughts on the matter. She may be a prize, but she is not a pawn and she will play the game to her own advantage.

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?

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.

Delphine has worked hard for her success, and she knows she's got everything she wants. But not everyone agrees. Her opinionated family aren't convinced that living alone with no plans to 'settle down' could possibly make her truly happy, and no one appreciates it when she drops everything, day or night, whenever her boss Conrad calls. Yet Delphine wouldn't change a thing. And when Conrad makes her a surprise offer, it's clear that her hard work is going to pay off.

Cynthia Wright is a rising star in American politics, strongly tipped as a future candidate for president. One night she is violently assaulted in her home by an intruder. She defends herself and minutes later, the intruder lies dead. Wright is hailed as a #MeToo heroine: the woman who fought back. But inconsistencies emerge in Wright's story, suggesting that the attack might not have been as random as it first seemed. When former White House troubleshooter Maggie Costello is drafted in to investigate, she finds intriguing gaps, especially over Wright's early life.

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.

A missing girl. A case that's personal. A contract killer on Irish soil. Cat Connolly is back at work. Struggling to adjust to physical and mental scars, her workload once again becomes personal when her best friend, Sarah Jane, goes missing. Sarah Jane's a journalism student, the daughter of a decorated war correspondent, but what could she be working on that could lead to her disappearance? And how deadly will it get?

Izzie Silver left the small Irish town of Tamarin behind her for life in New York. She's big, beautiful, and dreams of her own model agency for plus-sized women (what her grandmother would call "healthy" women). Life is good - but she's just broken one of her cardinal rules and fallen for a married man.

Lola has a plan. She's going to escape the village she grew up in and make it in the big city. She's smart enough - but she's also headstrong. When, one evening, she has to make a life-changing choice, she decides quickly, and without the full facts. But there's no way back. Bey is every bit her mother's daughter. An impulsive decision puts her in the path of great danger. She's left wary of trusting her own judgement ever again. Then, one night, she's standing in front of the man she loves, with her own choice to make.

On a leafy suburban street in Dublin, beautiful, poised Stella Greene lives with her successful husband, Matt. They're the perfect couple in every way, and Stella appears to have it all. Next door, at number 72, however, lives Rea Brady. Gruff, bad tempered and rarely seen besides the twitching of her net curtains, rumour has it she's lost it all...including her marbles, if you believe the neighbourhood gossip. But appearances can be deceiving, and when Stella and Rea's worlds collide they realise they have much in common.

For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice. When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.

Hare's Landing, West Cork. A house full of mystery.... Rachel Lambert leaves London afraid for her personal safety and determined to uncover the truth behind the sudden death of a homeless man with links to a country house hotel called Hare's Landing. New York-based crime reporter Caroline Kelly's career is threatened by a lawsuit, and she needs some thinking space away from her job. But almost as soon as she arrives, Hare's Landing begins to reveal its own stories - a 30-year-old missing-person's case and the mysterious death of the hotel's former owner.

Maisie Brennan is standing on a podium on the 20th anniversary of the death of her son, trying to find the first breath that will help her start talking to a room full of strangers. A daunting task at the best of times, but she's also menopausal and one hot flush away from totally losing it. But as Maisie begins her story, she relaxes and, word by word, disappears into her past, back to the day when one mistaken action led to a chain of events that changed her life forever....

Niamh and Conor Ryan are the perfect power couple: smart, successful and beautiful, they have an enviable relationship and an idyllic family life. But then the unthinkable happens. Their oldest son, Tom, is the victim of a hit-and-run. What was Tom doing out walking so late at night? Did he really have problems sleeping, or was he secretly meeting someone? Is it a coincidence that his friend, Lauren, committed suicide nearby - or is there something more sinister going on?

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?