Showing results by author "Roisin Meaney" in Literature & Fiction

Emily Feeney has always loved the festive season, so when she invites some of her favourite people to Christmas dinner at her restaurant, she has an afternoon of delicious fare and seasonal fun in mind. But as the big day draws near, her plans start to look a bit uncertain. Her partner Bill is preoccupied by family worries, and both he and Emily have been skirting around a big unanswered question. When events finally force Emily to issue an ultimatum, Bill must choose between the two women he loves.

Another summer is in full swing on the island of Roone, and preparations are underway for a big birthday party at the local hotel. But beneath the air of celebration, many of the islanders have their own struggles to contend with. Imelda, isolated by her recent heartbreak, has no memory of accepting a month-long bed and breakfast booking, but when a stranger turns up on her doorstep looking forward to his stay, she has little choice but to take him in.

A tragic accident leaves the tight-knit book club in the small seaside town of Fairweather reeling. Then stranger Tom McLysaght arrives in the community, and the members of the club find their lives changing in ways they never could have imagined. None of them realise that Tom is hiding a secret. On the surface, his move to Fairweather was to escape his highflying life in London and to put some much-needed distance between him and his ex-fiancée - but deep down Tom knows that there are some things he cannot run from.

Three strangers arrive home to Ireland to the house that gave each of them refuge when they needed it most. They are there to celebrate the winter wedding of their beloved Annie, the woman who fostered them in their childhoods. Now Julia is a world-famous singer living in luxury in Paris and Eddie is a chef in London, while Steph spends her days on a remote Greek island, running a writers' retreat with her older lover. All three have moved on from the past, but as the wedding celebrations get underway, certain truths come to light. It turns out that some hurts last longer than others ...

It's Una Darling's 17th birthday, but nobody feels much like celebrating. It's been exactly a year since the tragic death of her father, Finn, and the people he left behind have been doing their best to get on with things. But it hasn't been easy. Daphne is tired of sadness, of mourning the long life she and her husband were meant to share, but doesn't quite know how to get past it. And she can't seem to get through to her stepdaughter - they barely speak anymore, so Daphne knows nothing of the unexpected solace Una has found, or of the risk she's about to take.

When Chef Emily is left at the altar in front of her family and friends, she swears off love and instead throws herself into her new business: a restaurant with a difference. There's only one communal table, designed with the single diner in mind. Now it's two years later, and with her business thriving with regular customers, romance is still the last thing on Emily's mind - until she receives a letter from her ex who is returning home from Canada with a burning question for her....

The friendship starts with a letter...from aspiring writer Sarah to blunt but witty journalist Helen, complaining about Helen's most recent book review. And there begins a correspondence that blossoms into a friendship which spans over two decades. As the years pass, the women exchange details of loves lost and found, of family joys and upheavals. Sarah's letters filled with thoughts on her outwardly perfect marriage and her aching desire for children, and Helen's on the struggle of raising her young daughter alone.

It's three days before Christmas. Tilly boards a plane on the other side of the world. She's determined to reach Roone, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, in time for Christmas Day. Tilly carries a troubling secret, and Laura, a woman she's never met, might be the only one who can help her. Except that Laura has no idea that Tilly exists. And with five children, a mother-in-law stranded on the island and a husband with whom she's barely on speaking terms, an unexpected Christmas guest is the last thing she needs.

As a new decade begins, hopeless romantic and big dreamer Ellen is finally moving on from her hometown. In Galway she takes a job in a bookshop, and somewhere between the dusty bookshelves and the quiet afternoons, a bookseller called Ben finds a place in her heart. Fast forward, and the bright lights (and cosy flats) of London are calling Ellen's name. There she meets Leo, a charming, attentive City banker who's everything she's ever wanted. And wherever she goes, her heart beats in time with her childhood friend, Danny - though they never seem to be in the right place at the right time.

A warm, spellbinding tale of friendship, love and second chances from this number one best-selling author. Behind the brightly coloured doors of Miller's Avenue live people with very complicated lives...When Yvonne in number seven joins an online dating website, she's looking for something more than friendship but, after a series of disastrous encounters, decides to shut down her account. Is she shutting out her only chance of finding love? While next door Dan, still reeling from his wife's desertion, signs up for a cookery course....

May O'Callaghan has decided that life's too short and she's decided to throw in the towel in her predictable nine-to-five job. Now what? As May fits into her new life we meet her friend Pam and her husband Jack - but why is Pam terrified to tell Jack that she's pregnant? And then there's Denis and Bernard, May's next-door neighbours, going about their business oblivious to the deadly threat that lurks close by. There's Paddy, who lives on his own yet never seems to be at home.

After 26 years of marriage Lily and Charlie separate. Lily moving on with her new fiancé Joe, and Charlie, with his new, younger, girlfriend Chloe. Even Lily and Charlie's grown-up children Polly and Thomas have come to terms with their parent's new lives. But when Lily's mother dies, Lily and Charlie decide to get the family together for one last weekend in the old family summer home - a weekend that just happens to be their 30th wedding anniversary. As the whole family gathers with their respective partners, home truths come out and secrets are divulged. By the end of the weekend, everything will have changed - but for better or for worse?

It's their 20-year school reunion but the Plunkett sisters have their own reasons for not wanting to attend. Caroline, now a successful knitwear designer, spends her time flying between her business in England and her lover in Italy. As far as she's concerned, her school days, and what happened to her the year she left, should stay in the past. Eleanor, meanwhile, is unrecognisable from the fun-loving girl she was in school. With a son who is barely speaking to her, and a husband keeping a secret from her, revisiting the past is the last thing on her mind.

The average person moves house eight times in their lifetime. But are you moving closer to your destiny or further away? This is Ellen's story...