The secrets of Roscarbury Hall : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 1510713727
- ISBN: 9781510713727
-
Physical Description:
322 pages ; 22 cm
print - Edition: First North American edition.
- Publisher: New York, NY : Skyhorse Publishing, 2016.
- Copyright: ©2015
Content descriptions
General Note: | "First published by Black & White Publishing Ltd in the United Kingdom under the title The ballroom cafe"--Title page verso. |
Summary, etc.: | "In a crumbling mansion in a small Irish village in County Wicklow, two elderly sisters, Ella and Roberta O'Callaghan, live alone with their secrets, memories, and mutual hatred. Long estranged by a dark family tragedy, they communicate only by terse notes. But when the sisters are threatened with bankruptcy, Ella defies Roberta's wishes and takes matters into her own hands, putting her baking skills to good use and converting the mansion's old ballroom into a café. Much to Roberta's displeasure, the cafés a hit and the sisters are reluctantly drawn back into the village life they abandoned decades ago. But gossip has a long life, and Ella finds herself reliving painful memories when Debbie, an American woman searching for her birth mother, begins working at the café. As the local convent comes under scrutiny, the O'Callaghan sisters find themselves caught up in an adoption scandal that dates back to the 1960s and spreads all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Only by overcoming their enmity and facing up to the past can they face the future together--but can they finally put their differences behind them?"-- |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Sisters Ireland Fiction Older women Ireland Fiction Family secrets Fiction Adoptees Fiction Adoption Corrupt practices Fiction |
Genre: | Domestic fiction. |
Available copies
- 5 of 5 copies available at Bibliomation.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 5 total copies.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
C.H. Booth Library - Newtown | FIC OLOUGHLIN (Text) | 34014138112850 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Janet Carlson Calvert Library - Franklin | F OLO (Text) | 33345000272708 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Plumb Memorial Library - Shelton | FIC OLOUGHLIN (Text) | 34025138436529 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Somers Public Library | FIC OLO (Text) | 34042132748668 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Wolcott Public Library | FIC OLOUGHLIN, A. SE (Text) | 34031137212234 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Publishers Weekly Review
The Secrets of Roscarbury Hall : A Novel
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
After 50 years of resentment and grief, unraveled family secrets are rewoven into a bittersweet truth in this poignant debut novel from Irish journalist O'Laughlin. To save her family's languishing Irish estate, Ella O'Callaghan opens the Ballroom Café against her sister Roberta O'Callaghan's objections: "Give up now for all our sakes." The reclusive sisters of Roscarbury Hall haven't spoken since the late 1950s, living together without speaking, communicating only through written notes. Into this tension walks Debbie Kading, an American woman looking for her biological mother. Ella and Debbie bond over the café and life's cruel turns. But when Debbie's search hits a dead end at a local convent, she takes her story to national radio and inadvertently exhumes a near-forgotten Irish adoption scandal. The café and Roscarbury bloom with the publicity, but so does the bitterness between Ella and Roberta, still determined to cling to their grudges and guilt. The truth, like Roscarbury Hall, is at first "a sorry pile... long neglected." Silence and hope are common threads to both personal and national tragedies in this story. Making use of her experience reporting the actual adoption scandal-in which tens of thousands of babies were sold off by nuns-O'Laughlin metes out revelations, both painful and redeeming, in this warm, patient debut. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.