Rachael English's Blog

Dear Goodreads friends,

Happy Christmas and here's to lots of happy reading 2024.

My next book, Whatever Happened to Birdy Troy, will be published in February '24. It's about an all-woman rock band in early '80s Ireland, about how brilliant they were, and about the podcaster who's determined to find out why they vanished.

If you use Netgalley, it's now available for request.

Thanks and best wishes,
Rachael.

Dear Goodreads friends,

Happy New Year and much good-reading in 2020.

'Just a little note to let you know that if you use Netgalley, my new book 'The Paper Bracelet' is now available there.

It's due to be published on the 27th of February, and I'm at the very very nervous stage!

Here's the link; https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/b...

And here's what it's all about:

For almost fifty years, Katie Carroll has kept a box of secrets.
It dates from her time working as a nurse in a west of Ireland mother and baby home, and contains a notebook with details of the babies and young women she met there. It also holds many of the babies' identity bracelets.
Following the death of her husband, Katie makes a decision. She posts a message on an internet forum, knowing that the information she possesses could help reunite adopted people with their birth mothers.
Soon, the replies are rolling in, and Katie encounters success, failure, heartache and joy as she finds herself in the role of part-detective, part-counsellor - chasing down leads, piecing together stories, and returning many of the bracelets to their original owners.
But there is one bracelet in the box that holds the key to a story that may never be told ...

All best wishes,
Rachael.

Dear friends who use Netgalley,

'Just a quick line to let you know that my new book, The Night of the Party, is now available for request. The book will be published on May 3.

This is the link: https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/b...

Here's what it's all about:

January 1982: In the village of Kilmitten, the Crossan family is holding its annual party during the biggest snowstorm Ireland has seen in decades. By the end of the night, the parish priest, Father Leo Galvin, is dead.

The lives of four teenager friends – Tom, Conor, Tess and Nina – who had been drinking beer and smoking in a shed at the back of the house, will never be the same. But one of them carries a secret from that night.

Years pass, loves come and go, and the lives of the friends diverge – yet a bond that won’t be broken silently holds.

As the thirty-fifth anniversary of Father Galvin's murder approaches, Conor, now a senior police officer, has become obsessed with the crime. He believes that Tom, a prominent politician, can help identify Father Galvin's killer.

His dilemma draws the four friends back together, and lost love Nina back into the life of Tom, forcing all to question their lives and to confront their differences.

But will Kilmitten's secret finally be revealed?

And here's the Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

My new book, THE AMERICAN GIRL, will be published on the 13th of April - just two weeks away (gulp!). You can win a signed copy over here:
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Dear reviewers and bloggers,

If you use Netgalley, you might like to know that my new novel, THE AMERICAN GIRL, is now available for request.

Here's the blurb: Boston 1968. Rose Moroney is seventeen, smart, spirited – and pregnant. She wants to marry her boyfriend. Her ambitious parents have other plans. She is sent to Ireland, their birthplace, to deliver her daughter in a Mother and Baby home. Against Rose's will, her baby is taken for adoption.

Dublin 2013. Martha Sheeran’s life has come undone. Her marriage is over, and her husband has moved on with unsettling speed. Under pressure from her teenage daughter, she starts looking for the woman who gave her up for adoption more than forty years before.

Martha's search for her birth mother leads her to the heart of long-buried family secrets and forces her to question everything she thought she knew. When her first love, Paudie Carmody, re-enters the frame, she's also forced to take a hard look at her own life.

From Boston to rural Ireland; from Dublin back to Boston, The American Girl is a heart-warming and enthralling story about mothers and daughters, love and cruelty and, ultimately, the struggle for acceptance – and the embrace of new horizons.

With everybody talking about reading challenges and new books and whatnot, today seems like a good time to put this up here.

My new book, The American Girl, will be published in April.

It starts in the 1960s with Rose, a seventeen year old Boston girl who becomes pregnant. Appalled, her ambitious parents send her to Ireland, their home place, to have her baby in secret. Against her will, she gives her little girl up for adoption.

More than forty years later, Martha Sheeran's life is unravelling. Her husband has left, and her teenage daughter, Evanne, is questioning everything. Under pressure from Evanne, Martha agrees to start searching for her birth mother.

It's a search that leads her to some unlikely places, uncovers some long-held secrets . . . and forces her to ask a lot of questions about how she has lived her own life.

You can learn more - and see the gorgeous cover - here. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Although I'm a fan of 'real' books and real bookshops, I know that lots of you use one electronic device or another.

So ... I thought I'd let you know that 'Each and Every One' is currently reduced in price on both Nook and Amazon. It's selling for £1.29 (that's about €1.60 or two dollars).

The offer will only last for a day or so, I think. (I find the book-selling world very confusing!)

All the best,
Rachael.

PS. If you're in Mayo on Saturday, I'll be reading at the Rolling Sun Book Festival in Westport with Michele Forbes and Hilary Fannin. All the details are here: http://www.rollingsunbookfestival.com/

Thanks to everybody who entered the giveaway for Each and Every One ... and congratulations to the five winners.

As soon as I get my hands on some books, I promise I'll send them on.

I hope that you enjoy the read!

My new book, Each and Every One, will be published in mid September.

It tells the story of a privileged Dublin family - and of how they all cope when things start to go wrong.

If you'd like to read the first chapter, here it is:

http://bit.ly/1l14kMW

And if you'd like to enter a giveaway, you can do that here:

http://bit.ly/Xja4ae

Thanks!

My new book is due to be published in early September. I've set up a give-away on this very site.

You can enter - and find out more about Each and Every One - right here:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...