LIVES REUNITED

LIVES REUNITED (Book 3)

The final book in the ‘Lives’ trilogy, set in counties Clare and Wexford and in Boston, the family saga continues, taking us up to 1970s Ireland..

Quiet, gentle Catherine falls for the charming but controlling Thomas who manages to destroy the family in a way that no-one could ever have envisaged.

Catherine’s daughter, Eileen, returns from America for her mother’s funeral but finds herself having to stay to look after a father she despises.

All her life Catherine’s niece, Dorothy, has hidden an unmentionable secret.  Everyone has their suspicions but nobody can give voice to them.

It may take a lifetime, but secrets seldom remain buried.

Reviews for LIVES REUNITED:

“An unforgettable story which poignantly and heartwarmingly navigates us through the
maelstrom of powerful emotions. . .  This book moved me deeply and while I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions as I moved from chapter to chapter, it was the poignancy of the final chapters that reduced me to tears.  One could not but feel a tug at the heartstrings and a sympathy for all of those caught up in the fallout as a result of the actions of one person”. 

“A born story-teller, writing of the era in the language of the era, weaving the lives of her characters skilfully into the history of the time.” 

“A beautifully written, compelling novel in gentle prose that packs an emotional punch.” 

“McLoughlin draws us into the midst of their ordinary everyday lives, right up to the
event that ruptures their relationships and has a domino effect down through the generations”. 

“How I loved the scenes involving the hopeful young Catherine, lighting the candle in the quiet of the darkened church and later after a life of disappointments, sitting in her garden admiring the activity around the bird bath, while having to cope with a knowledge that she would rather not have.”

www.amazon.co.uk/Lives-Reunited-Irish-family-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0C3MXHCRJ

LIVES WITHOUT END

LIVES WITHOUT END (Book 2)

An emotional tale of family secrets spanning three generations. ‘Lives Without End’ focusses mainly on Johanna’s niece, the beautiful, but emotionally fragile, Bridie.

A young bride, full of hope and courage, who, following a tragedy, emigrates from Ireland to build a new life in America.  After her involvement in an affair that would rock society were it to be discovered, she is forced into making a heartbreaking decision.  She returns home to Ireland with her arsenal of secrets, in her search for peace and the meaning of life.

Hidden lives, memories of the past – who knows what lies beneath the surface we present to the world?

Set in counties Clare and Wexford in Ireland and Boston, USA.

Reviews for LIVES WITHOUT END:

“From the first sentence . . . the author had me hooked, captured in a web of beautiful descriptive prose, a delicious assault on my senses and drew me irrevocably into the lives, the joys, the agonies, the minds and very hearts of the two main characters”.

“I found myself enthralled with Mary Ann and Bridie as they each encountered the many complexities of life . . . the highs and the lows, at times, bearing a silent lonely grief that will move the hardest of hearts.”

“As each woman walks in her own valley of darkness . . . we are moved by their plights. McLoughlin explores and portrays superbly that aching feeling of loss, the abandonment of dreams, the descent from hope to despair, but the book has lots of moments of joy, that serve to sustain the characters as they go through their lives.”

“The author is wholly in tune with the vagaries of country living and is truly at her best when she writes about events and community interactions in vivid detail. With scenes like the reciting of the rosary at a village wake, the quiet night-time atmosphere of the lambing shed, she manages to bring life in rural Ireland alive.”

“. . .  a beautifully written, evocative story of that time. It tells of an Ireland long gone, capturing memories of rural Ireland that will resonate with anyone with an Irish connection and will delight those who don’t.  What makes this novel stand out from others in the genre is McLoughlin’s lyrical prose, you can almost see the places she describes, the landscape of her characters’ lives.”

www.amazon.co.uk/Lives-Without-End-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B0937FM2LY

LIVES APART

LIVES APART (Book 1)

A family saga of betrayal, tragedy and survival.

1877.

Young Johanna McNamara leaves her quiet life on the family farm in Ireland to join her brother in America.  However, tragedy strikes shortly after she arrives, putting an end to her plans for adventure, and she finds she must put the care of others before her own needs.

Back in Ireland, farming life for the family continues through the seasons, with her brother Art having to deal with his troubled son Declan. Sending him to the USA is an option that might help turn him into a man. Little does Johanna know what lies ahead when everything in her life changes with the arrival of her nephew whose act of betrayal blows her life apart.

Set in Ireland, Boston, San Francisco and Nova Scotia the book explores sibling relationships and how a disastrous action by one reverberates through the lives of the extended family.

Reviews for LIVES APART:

“In spite of being set a hundred years ago, the characters’ thoughts, joys and worries are so relatable and global. The dialogue is sparkling and witty, the scenes evocative of a time now lost and the interplay between the characters, and especially between the generations , is rendered wonderfully.”

“I was genuinely moved by the plight Johanna found herself in. . . .  a beautiful build up to the major events and a harrowing account of their consequences. The descriptive passages throughout the book are stunning . There is no doubt that this story came from the heart of the author.” 

“. . . the story paints the drama of individual lives onto a canvas of great historical events. Some of the more contemplative moments are really vividly and finely portrayed – this writer knows how to paint colour pictures!”

Poolbeg Books

www.amazon.co.uk/Lives-Apart-betrayal-tragedy-survival-ebook/dp/B08MWY632B

Wacky Eire

Imagine BBC’s Country File crossed with the cult series Eurotrash, or Father Ted… Now imagine it as a book of true stories, written by an insider who has traveled the length and breadth of Ireland seeking out the weird, the wacky, the raunchy and the downright shocking… this is Wacky Eire.   An outrageous romp through the real Ireland – where ancient traditions and modern obsessions make lively bedfellows and where people constantly surprise you: naughty farmers, dodgy faith-healers, secret swingers, strippers, animal antics – they’re all here in words and pictures. Ranging from scandalous exposes to charming vignettes of rural life, this is the brazen face – and other bodily parts – of modern Ireland. Welcome to Wacky Eire – it’s stranger than fiction.

The Blow-In: Ian Bailey’s fight to clear his name

People said he deserved to spend the last thirty years of his life alone and afraid.  Pursued by police and media in two countries, tried and convicted in his absence for the murder of a wealthy French socialite in her remote Irish cottage, the hard-drinking drop-out had been trying to revive his career as an investigative journalist when he found himself in the frame.
He died in a public street at the age of sixty-six, destitute, alone – and protesting his innocence.

Death: a collection of poems

Death cannot exist without life. This is the existential and essential truth at the heart of this collection. Irreverent and rebellious, humble and awestruck, drawn from the poet’s personal experience and contemporary world affairs, these poems are prisms through which she sees life triumph over death. Themes include the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis’s Pachamama ritual and the plight of Prince Harry.

Ghostwriter Confidential: a selection of newspaper cuttings

In a career spanning more than three decades, journalist Geraldine Comiskey wrote for a wide range of newspapers in her native Ireland, the UK and US, breaking exclusives and writing on all aspects of human life. This is a selection of her cuttings. They include articles on crime, cults, murder-suicides, mental health, justice, business, the economy, farming, animal rights and environmental matters as well as features on the lighter side of life.
They include an interview with a district court judge, a sheriff, a woman who escaped from a mental health institution, an animal psychic, and families affected by murder, murder-suicide and rape. They include articles on the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, a first-hand account of life on a Greenpeace ship and an investigation into the use of animals to test cosmetics.
Note: All of these articles are freely available online; the purpose of this book is to showcase her journalism to potential future employers / clients of her ghostwriting service. They don’t include the stories from her books in the Wacky series which are available as separate books.

Skin Deep: Beauty is only skin-deep…until everybody has it

Skin Deep – synopsisBeauty is only skin deep…until everybody has it.

Cosmetic surgeon Raffaella Bianchi has grown up knowing that she is the most beautiful girl in the Italian town of Borgocasino. But she has never been tempted to sashay down the Milan passarella or join the hordes of starlets who fight tooth-and-manicured-fingernail for jobs as TV gameshow hostesses.

Having experienced emotional pain as an adolescent, she wants to help other people – whether with a comforting smile or a sharp scalpel. And she believes that the only cure for some people is…beauty. So she offers her services free.  Actors, women taken for granted by their boyfriends, gangsters on the run…they all come to the beautiful “Dottoressa” to heal their self-image and change their lives.

Soon, beauty is no longer the preserve of those with good genes or plenty of money. The runways are inundated with uber-models. Hollywood has so many stars that even the extras are extra-glam. Beauty loses its exclusive appeal – and ugliness becomes a precious commodity. Now everyone wants to see unattractive people on screen, on the catwalk, sitting across the table from them on Valentine’s Night. What’s the point in a candlelit dinner when the two of you look gorgeous in floodlights? What’s the point in putting the spotlight on the belle of the ball, when everyone is bellissima?

But Raffaella’s act of altruism has gone horribly wrong, and she has made enemies, including the mother of a child beauty pageant princess, a jealous husband whose wife has become very desirable to other men – and a crazed dog-breeder who seeks revenge after Raffaella refuses to make her pug more ‘pugly’.

Still Life: she wants to paint a new life

She wants to paint a new life for herself, but can she turn it into a masterpiece? Beautiful, spoilt Chloe is a flower of a girl – and a thorn in the side of every socialite in the affluent Dublin suburb of Belgowan. Her parents got rich just in time for her to jump the queue in the pecking order of pampered princesses. She simply refuses to accept her place according to the rules of suburban snobbery – and, at nineteen, being the belle of Belgowan is only a starting point for a fairytale life full of endless possibilities…

But suddenly the red carpet is whipped from under her – when her doting Daddy leaves her mother for a floozy and goes off to sip bubbly on the tax-haven island of Santa Moneta.

Through the gossip pages of the national press, Chloe realises that it’s not a bad dream: she really has got a Wicked Stepmother, a half-brother who’s going through the Terrible Twos – and no pocket money. Dear old Daddy has turned into a champagne cheapskate whose business has mysteriously gone bust, and he’s no longer willing to support Chloe, her wannabe rock star kid brother Daryus (who copes with losing his father by moving in with a lapdancer) and their shopaholic mother (who’s not coping at all).

Chloe spends every lunch break gazing at the masterpieces in the National Gallery. Inspired by their complex beauty, she paints a colourful new life for herself.

But there’s a rip in her canvas: a charming and ambitious young man, and his glamorous wife. Chloe doesn’t want to have anything to do with broken marriages– and she never takes hand-me-downs.

The Drop-Out: freedom has a prize

Providence Wilde is not the kind of girl you’d expect to see living rough on the streets of Dublin.

After all, not many homeless people get to sleep on the sofa in the VIP lounge of Dublin’s hippest nightclub, maintain their gym membership and go on dates in posh restaurants.

Alienated from her family, she discovers that friends are not forever and “freedom” has a price.

* With extracts from “Floozies” and “Skin Deep”, by the same author.