She finds solace in music, drugs and her best friend Becca, but most of all in an illicit relationship with a jagged, magnetic older man. She longs for a life outside her dysfunctional family, far away from the North and all its troubles, free from her quiet brooding father Patsy, who never talks about her mother, Nuala a woman Sam barely knew, who abandoned them twelve years ago. It cannot last and when her chance to leave Northern Ireland comes, Nuala takes it. She finds unexpected refuge with a seventeen-year-old boy, but this relationship is only temporary, a sticking plaster on a festering wound. Her daughter Sam and baby son PJ keep her tethered to this life she doesn't want. In 1982, Nuala Malin struggles to stay connected, to her husband, to motherhood, to the smallness of her life in the belly of a place that is built on hate and stagnation. The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, Olivia Fitzsimons ( paperback March 2023) £8.99 She's just a maid - but what can she see that others overlook? Escapist, charming and introducing a truly original heroine, The Maid is a story about how the truth isn't always black and white - it's found in the dirtier, grey areas in between. And as Molly becomes embroiled in the hunt for the truth, following the clues whispering in the hallways of the Regency Grand, she discovers a power she never knew was there. This isn't a mess that can be easily cleaned up. She's just a maid - why should anyone take notice? But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed.

She's used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. Your dirty laundry.īut what do you know about me? Molly the maid is all alone in the world. THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER The Maid, Rita Prose ( paperback from end April 2023 ) £8.99

Elizabeth finch book review