Chapter 1: What book recommendations do the librarians suggest for a bank holiday?
Now, if you're looking for something to read over the bank holiday, you are in luck because the librarians are here. Tracey McEnany, Executive Librarian with Waterford Libraries and Doreena Malloy of Mayo County Library. Good morning. Good morning. Great to see you. Doreena, let's start with you. Tim Weavers.
The Lost Women, which is part of a series about a former journalist who's now a missing persons investigator.
That's correct. That's David Raker. And he's just great. He has solved some great cases through the years. This is book 12. And so he's called in, in this case, to find the husband of an actress who has gone for facial surgery.
Chapter 2: What is 'The Lost Women' about and why is it compelling?
And it's only when he comes out, supposedly, and the bandages are unwrapped, she goes, that's not my husband. He's literally gone missing from the hospital. Great start. Really just draws you in. And then he kind of as he investigates, he learns there's a link between this disappearance and a case he had looked into as a journalist 20 years previously of three women who went missing.
So he was always fascinated with that case. So he's delighted to be kind of have a way back into it. He works with a guy who used to be a Met detective, Colm Healy. Now, he's really struggling because his only daughter was murdered. So he's kind of really struggling to stay on his game. It is just fantastic. Twists and turns galore. And I just can't. It ends on such a cliffhanger.
I nearly threw it across the room. I couldn't believe it. So book 13 can't come soon enough anymore.
And with that series, do you need to start with book one? Do you need to start with book one and work it with him?
I think, like everything, they're all standalone books. However, the character development, David Raker's character development, I personally think it's better.
OK, Tracey, you're going to Norway to start. The Ferryman and His Wife.
The Ferryman and His Wife by Norwegian author Freud Gritten. This is translated by Alison McCulloch. It's only 166 pages long. It's a beautiful book. It's about Niels Vick, who is a ferryman on the fjord. It's his last day on earth. He takes his boat out on the fjord for the last time, as he's done so for the past 15 years, like his father before him.
And the passengers on the boat are the people that have died. You know, they're coming back into the boat beyond the grave. that have influenced his life, friendships, passengers that he's liked or not liked, I suppose, along the way. But the only passenger he wants to meet is Martha, his beloved wife. Does he meet her on the way? This is simply a gorgeous book. 166 pages.
But it packs an awful lot into those pages.
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Chapter 3: Do you need to start with book one in the David Raker series?
Tracy, Dysfunctional Families and Lost Lambs by Madeleine Cash tells the story of the Flynn family. Bit of dysfunction going on here?
Oh, this is a great book. It's a debut. It's a real crash, wallop, bang of a book. Bud and Catherine, the parents decide to have an open marriage with amusing results. This is kind of funny book as well. I like that. You know, I did really, really like that. Harper, the 13 year old, is sent off to the wilderness for form camp as she thinks the whole town is being watched.
And she's very vocal about her conspiracies. Louise, the middle child, is secretly corresponding with an online terrorist. who is encouraging her to build a bomb.
And then Abigail, the 16-year-old, is dating Wes Whelan, who has the nickname War Crime Wes, who is several years older than her and is the bodyguard to Paul Alabaster, who is the local billionaire, but he's also the local baddie as well.
Chapter 4: What is 'The Ferryman and His Wife' and what themes does it explore?
Rumours of corruption abound, but... The only person who wants to dig deeper into this is Harper, the daughter, and that means trouble for the whole family. But when someone attacks one person in the Flynn family, what do they do but stick together like any family, isn't it?
Brilliant. Yeah, great. Love it. Doreena, it's not what you think by Clare McIntosh. Lots of twists and turns in this.
Oh, I mean, I'm nearly afraid to say anything in case I give away a twist. But I don't know if it's to do with she used to be a police officer in a past life. And I think that gives her a really great insight into how things work and how cases work. So in this book, she focuses on a woman who her husband had cheated on her in the past. She left him.
She's living with her two daughters now and she has a new partner and she's really happy with him. But he's been acting extremely strangely. So she's convinced he's either cheating or he's about to leave her. She leaves work early one day and she arrives home to find him dead.
And the police are at the house and she the police officer gives her the number to contact and stays in regular touch with her. And then the twists and turns start. So I really can't say anymore because I'm just going to give the whole thing away. But but it was just fantastic. Sometimes books have too many twists and turns, not in this case, because it just kept me going right to the end.
Great. OK, Tracey, the next one I've actually read, Beneath the Cedar Tree by our colleague Frank Soldice. I loved it. Very, very moving, isn't it?
Oh, very moving. In 1995, five years since Brendan and Irene Gogarty lost their son, Carl, the man responsible for the boy's death is about to be released from prison only after serving five years. He was sentenced to nine, but due to good behaviour, he's out early. I thought this was a really powerful book, but I found the start very difficult to read.
And I think like even thinking about it now and now I know I was talking to Frank and he said, yes, it gets lighter. And he he's listening to the radio here. He hears someone talking about Medjugorje and, you know, they were going through grief and grief. So he decides he'll go off to Medjugorje on a pilgrimage.
And I've been on pilgrimages, so I kind of know, you know, what happens and the people on it and this sort of thing. But they're far from what he describes, I think. But again, I was talking to this about... in our reading group again, and load of discussion about this book. So really, it's a great book. It's like grief, love, loss, marriage falling apart.
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Chapter 5: How does 'Yesteryear' address the concept of a 'trad wife'?
who is a mystic and he sees the vision of his death and he knows that he has to find a companion to whom he can deliver all his knowledge. Now, I preferred the shams of debris part rather than the modern day. And it is loosely based on Rumi, the 13th century historical figure who was a poet. and his companion, Sham's Debris. But yes, I did like the Sham's Debris part.
Not so much the modern day part, but still people love it. And this author's got 20 books and every book is as popular as the next one.
Okay, Doreena, this next one you think should be read by Candlelight. This, my second live debut novel by Patrick Charnley.
Yes, there's a reason for that. It's set in a little cottage, a coastal farmhouse in Cornwall with no electricity in the modern day. And that's because it's Jago's uncle's house, Jacob, and he's quite happy to live that way. They do have a freezer in the shed where they keep food and that, but he's quite happy to live without electricity.
And most of the neighbours think he's pure mad, of course. Now, Jago is living with his uncle. He's in his 20s and he's living with his uncle because he has sustained a brain injury after a near death experience. So he's having to relearn everything. His struggles with his memory. He has to when there's something he has to remember.
And there's a beautiful poignant scene of him walking home, saying over and over again what he has to tell his uncle and message a neighbour gave him. I have to tell him this. I have to tell him this. But the simplicity of their life, it's beautifully described. The nature and the scenery in this is just gorgeous. And the simplicity of the life seems to help him. And it's not surprising.
Modern day life just throws so much at you. So it's a gorgeous read. And then when we find out that it's actually based on the author's own experience of a brain injury. Now, he was older. He was married with children. But he said that all the symptoms and everything he describes in the book are mirrored on his own experience.
And he is the son of the author, Helen, the late author, Helen Dunmore. And it's a beautiful tribute to his mum in that two of the characters in the book are named after two of her characters, which I thought was a really lovely touch. It's a gorgeous book. And I just felt like I should have been reading it by candlelight or by torchlight. It just felt that way. But it was gorgeous.
OK, Tracy, for a bit of fun, fundamentally a novel.
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Chapter 6: What makes 'Dysfunctional Families and Lost Lambs' a unique read?
I only just started a couple of days ago. It's 1956. But at the start of the book, she's got, you know, a little bit about the history of women's lives around 1956 as such. At the back of the book, then she's got it's based in Bagot Street Bookshop and it's got all the history about the Bagot Street bookshops and the authors in that area.
And then in each chapter, there's a little blurb about books and binding and title pages and authors. It's really, really good. But the story itself is about sisterhood, mysteries, bookshops. So like if you love books, you're going to love this book.
Brilliant. The Bookshop Sisters by Sarah Webb brings us to a close. Tracey McEnany and Doreena Molloy, thank you so much for joining us. And if you want more information about Bealtaine events in libraries for the month of May, celebrating creativity and the arts as we age, you can go visit bealtaine.ie. So thanks a million for that, guys, and talk to you next time.