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Echo Hall – Virginia Moffatt
A fascinating family saga spanning almost a century about the lives, loves and tragedies of three strong women, Rachel, Elsie and Ruth, set against the history of WWI, the suffragette movement, WWII and the Gulf War. All somehow connected to Echo Hall. All influenced by its ominous atmosphere… Introduction It is the year 2014 and Phoebe is curious as to the place where she was born: the stately mansion called ‘Echo Hall,’ home of the Flint family. The house that has been “on the edge of her memory” for so long that she is dying to be inside it, to breathe in the atmosphere of the former home of her…
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The Ballroom Café – Ann O’Loughlin
Two estranged sisters, living in their ancestral home set in the beautiful Irish countryside – a touching tale of coming to terms with secrets from the past Introduction A country mansion in Ireland for which it is almost impossible to keep up the maintenance and two sisters living in a situation both would give anything to avoid, a nice romantic novel, I thought. Instead, it is a tale of Ireland’s history filled with delicious cakes but most of all with a Catholic past Ireland is stills struggling with. Ann O’Loughlin tells us about shameful secrets of forced adoptions, of (unmarried) pregnant girls sent to convents to give birth who were forbidden…