Felicity Hayes-McCoy

When Hanna Casey discovered her high-flying barrister husband's longstanding affair, she left their London home and returned with her teenage daughter to the little village where she was born, on Ireland's Finvarra Peninsula. Now, after six years living with her widowed mother Mary, Hanna has settled into a dull job as a local librarian in the small nearby town of Lissbeg. On a whim she decides to spend her savings on a renovating a derelict two-room house on a patch of land inherited from her great aunt, and finds herself leading a battle to restore the heart and soul of Lissbeg's fragmented, neglected community. Hanna and those around her begin to rediscover the power of the past, the joys of the present and the courage to believe in the future.

The Library at the Edge of the World

"A sparkling, life-affirming novel--sunshine on the page."--Cathy Kelly "Heartwarming."--Irish Independent Return to USA Today bestselling author Felicity Hayes-McCoy's Finfarran Peninsula with this enchanting novel in the vein of Jenny Colgan, Maeve Binchy, and Nancy Thayer--humming with the rhythms of modern rural Irish life--in which librarian Hanna Casey and her family and friends face new challenges and possibilities. On the Finfarran Peninsula on Ireland's west coast, the blue skies and warmer days of summer are almost here. At the Lissbeg Library, Hanna Casey has big plans for the long days ahead. Beginning with the film adaptation of Brooklyn, she's starting a cinema club, showing movies based on popular novels her friends and neighbors love. But the drama that soon unfolds in this close-knit seaside village rivals any on the screen. Just when Lissbeg begins to feel like home, an unexpected twist leaves Hanna's daughter, Jazz, reeling and may send her back to London. Aideen worries that her relationship with Conor won't survive the pressures of their planned double wedding with overbearing Eileen and manipulative Joe. Saira Khan throws herself into helping a troubled new arrival to Finfarran. Hanna enjoys getting closer to Brian until her ex-husband Malcolm returns, threatening her newfound contentment. As the club prepares for the first meeting of the summer, they'll all face difficult choices. But will they get the happy endings they deserve?

A Novel

The Month of Borrowed Dreams

Beloved author Felicity Hayes-McCoy returns with an enchanting, cozy new novel, perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer—It’s Christmas in Ireland, and when Cassie Fitzgerald arrives from Toronto to visit her grandparents, she learns that it’s never too late to come home. “The perfect winter heart-warmer.”—Cathy Kelly, bestselling author of Between Sisters and Secrets of a Happy Marriage The days are turning colder, preparations are under way for the Winter Fest, and everyone is hoping for a little holiday magic on the Finfarran peninsula. And as Cassie Fitzgerald, fresh from Toronto, is about to discover, there’s more to the holidays on the west coast of Ireland than mistletoe and mince pies. Enchanted by the small town where her dad was born, Cassie makes friends and joins local librarian Hanna Casey’s writing group in Lissbeg Library. But the more she’s drawn into the festivities leading up to her first Irish Christmas, the more questions she wants to ask. Why does her sweet-tempered grandmother Pat find it so hard to express her feelings? What’s going on between Pat and her miserly husband Ger? What happened in the past between the Fitzgeralds and Hanna’s redoubtable mother Mary Casey? And what about Shay: handsome, funny, smart, and intent on making Cassie’s stay as exciting as he can. Could he be the one for her? As Christmas Eve approaches, it’s Cassie, the outsider, who reminds Lissbeg’s locals that love, family, and friendship bring true magic to the season. But will her own, fractured family rediscover the joys of coming home?

The Mistletoe Matchmaker

"Maeve Binchy fans will adore it--she just gets better and better."--Patricia Scanlan On Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula, summer means glorious weather and a life-changing choice for local librarian Hanna Casey in this delightful installment in the USA Today bestselling series, a captivating tale filled with all the beauty, charm, and warmth of Ireland that is perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer. Summer has finally arrived on Ireland's west coast. On the Finfarran Peninsula, Hanna Casey is looking forward to al fresco lunches with friends and balmy evenings with her boyfriend Brian in their stunning new home in beautiful Hag's Glen. With a painful divorce behind her and family drama finally settled, Hanna begins to plan a romantic holiday getaway for the two of them. But life takes a turn when Brian's adult son suddenly moves in and Hanna unexpectedly runs into Amy, a former flatmate from Hanna's twenties in London. Reminded of her youth--and all the dreams and hopes she once had--Hanna begins to wonder if everything she now has is enough. When Amy suggests a reunion in London with old friends, Hanna accepts. While it's only short hop to England, Hanna feels like she's leaving Brian far behind. And when she's offered a new opportunity--the chance to be more than a local librarian in the little rural community where she grew up--Hanna is faced with a difficult choice: to decide what her heart truly wants.

The Heart of Summer

The beloved author of The Mistletoe Matchmaker returns with an enchanting new novel, perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer, about residents of Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula who set up a Skype book club with the little US town of Resolve, where generations of Finfarran's emigrants have settled. Distance makes no difference to love... Eager to cheer up her recently widowed gran, Cassie Fitzgerald, visiting from Canada, persuades Lissbeg Library to set up a Skype book club, linking readers on Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula with the US town of Resolve, home to generations of Finfarran emigrants. But when the club decides to read a detective novel, old conflicts on both sides of the ocean are exposed and hidden love affairs come to light. As secrets emerge, Cassie fears she may have done more harm than good. Will the truths she uncovers about her granny Pat's marriage affect her own hopes of finding love? Is Pat, who's still struggling with the death of her husband, about to fall out with her oldest friend, Mary? Or could the book club itself hold the key to a triumphant transatlantic happy ending? The Transatlantic Book Club continues the stories of the residents of the Finfarran Peninsula and introduces readers to new characters who they will surely fall in love with.

The Transatlantic Book Club

A heart-warming story about secrets between four generations of women and the healing power of books, love and friendship. The Garden Café, in the town of Lissbeg on Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula, is a place where plans are formed and secrets shared ... But Jazz - still reeling from her father's disclosures about the truth of his marriage to her mother, Hanna - has more on her mind than the comings and goings at the café. Now isolated from friends and family and fixating on her new job at a local guesthouse, she's started to develop feelings for a man who is strictly off limits . . . Meanwhile Hanna, Lissbeg's librarian, is unaware of the turmoil in her daughter's life - until her ex-husband Malcolm makes an appearance and she begins to wonder if the secrets she's carried for him might have harmed Jazz more than she'd realised. As things heat up in Lissbeg, can the old book Hanna finds buried in her own clifftop garden help Jazz?

A Feel-Good Finfarran Novel

Summer at the Garden Cafe

A heart-warming story about the healing power of books, love and friendship. A place where plans are formed and secrets are shared, the Garden Café is nestled at the heart of the town of Lissbeg, on Ireland's west coast. But Jazz - still reeling from the truth about her parents' marriage - has more on her mind than the gossip at the café. Increasingly isolated from her friends and family, she finds herself developing feelings for a man who is strictly off-limits ... Meanwhile Hanna, Lissbeg's librarian, is unaware of the turmoil in her daughter Jazz's life - until her ex-husband Malcolm makes an appearance. And she begins to wonder if the secrets she's carried for him might have done more harm than good. Then Hanna discovers a long-lost book buried in her garden. Could this help to turn Jazz's summer around, or is she too late?

Wilf Judd

The tip of the Dingle Peninsula, at the westernmost edge of Europe, is one of Ireland's most isolated regions. For millennia, it has also been a hub for foreign visitors: its position made it a medieval centre for traders, and the wildness of its remote landscape has been the setting for spiritual pilgrimage. This seeming paradox is what makes Dingle and its western hinterland unique: the ancient, native culture has been preserved, while also being influenced by the world at large. This rich heritage is best understood by chatting with the people who live and work here. But how many visitors get that opportunity? Starting with Dingle town, Felicity Hayes-McCoy takes us on an insiders' tour of the region, interviewing locals along the way, ranging from farmers, postmasters and boatmen to museum curators, radio presenters and sean-nós singers. A resident for the last twenty years, Felicity offers practical information and advice as well as cultural insights that will give any visitor a deeper understanding of this special place.

People, Places and Heritage

Dingle and Its Hinterland

“A sparkling, life-affirming novel—sunshine on the page.”—Cathy Kelly “Heartwarming.”—Irish Independent Return to USA Today bestselling author Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s Finfarran Peninsula with this enchanting novel in the vein of Jenny Colgan, Maeve Binchy, and Nancy Thayer—humming with the rhythms of modern rural Irish life—in which librarian Hanna Casey and her family and friends face new challenges and possibilities. On the Finfarran Peninsula on Ireland's west coast, the blue skies and warmer days of summer are almost here. At the Lissbeg Library, Hanna Casey has big plans for the long days ahead. Beginning with the film adaptation of Brooklyn, she’s starting a cinema club, showing movies based on popular novels her friends and neighbors love. But the drama that soon unfolds in this close-knit seaside village rivals any on the screen. Just when Lissbeg begins to feel like home, an unexpected twist leaves Hanna’s daughter, Jazz, reeling and may send her back to London. Aideen worries that her relationship with Conor won't survive the pressures of their planned double wedding with overbearing Eileen and manipulative Joe. Saira Khan throws herself into helping a troubled new arrival to Finfarran. Hanna enjoys getting closer to Brian until her ex-husband Malcolm returns, threatening her newfound contentment. As the club prepares for the first meeting of the summer, they’ll all face difficult choices. But will they get the happy endings they deserve?

“The perfect winter heart-warmer.”—Cathy Kelly, bestselling author of Between Sisters and Secrets of a Happy Marriage From beloved author Felicity Hayes-McCoy, an enchanting, cozy novel perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer. It’s Christmas in Ireland, and when Cassie Fitzgerald arrives from Toronto to visit her grandparents, she learns that it’s never too late to come home. The days are turning colder, preparations are under way for the Winter Fest, and everyone is hoping for a little holiday magic on the Finfarran peninsula. And as Cassie Fitzgerald, fresh from Toronto, is about to discover, there’s more to the holidays on the west coast of Ireland than mistletoe and mince pies. Enchanted by the small town where her dad was born, Cassie makes friends and joins local librarian Hanna Casey’s writing group in Lissbeg Library. But the more she’s drawn into the festivities leading up to her first Irish Christmas, the more questions she wants to ask. Why does her sweet-tempered grandmother Pat find it so hard to express her feelings? What’s going on between Pat and her miserly husband Ger? What happened in the past between the Fitzgeralds and Hanna’s redoubtable mother Mary Casey? And what about Shay: handsome, funny, smart, and intent on making Cassie’s stay as exciting as he can. Could he be the one for her? As Christmas Eve approaches, it’s Cassie, the outsider, who reminds Lissbeg’s locals that love, family, and friendship bring true magic to the season. But will her own, fractured family rediscover the joys of coming home?

“Maeve Binchy fans will adore it—she just gets better and better.”—Patricia Scanlan On Ireland’s Finfarran Peninsula, summer means glorious weather and a life-changing choice for local librarian Hanna Casey in this delightful installment in the USA Today bestselling series, a captivating tale filled with all the beauty, charm, and warmth of Ireland that is perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Nina George, and Nancy Thayer. Summer has finally arrived on Ireland’s west coast. On the Finfarran Peninsula, Hanna Casey is looking forward to al fresco lunches with friends and balmy evenings with her boyfriend Brian in their stunning new home in beautiful Hag’s Glen. With a painful divorce behind her and family drama finally settled, Hanna begins to plan a romantic holiday getaway for the two of them. But life takes a turn when Brian's adult son suddenly moves in and Hanna unexpectedly runs into Amy, a former flatmate from Hanna’s twenties in London. Reminded of her youth—and all the dreams and hopes she once had—Hanna begins to wonder if everything she now has is enough. When Amy suggests a reunion in London with old friends, Hanna accepts. While it’s only short hop to England, Hanna feels like she’s leaving Brian far behind. And when she’s offered a new opportunity—the chance to be more than a local librarian in the little rural community where she grew up—Hanna is faced with a difficult choice: to decide what her heart truly wants.

Local librarian Hanna Casey is gathering material for an exhibition on Ireland's War of Independence. But with an increasingly demanding mother, a boss who's a ruthless self-publicist, and her own family story of love and revenge, Hanna's personal life begins to conflict with her work at Lissbeg library. Meanwhile, twenty-one-year-old Aideen, who's just had her first baby, is convinced that she needs to find her own dad, whom she's never known. When old wounds are opened in the little clifftop house left to Hanna by her Great Aunt Maggie, it become clear that history is never just about the past. And, as Aideen and Hanna discover, with help, as ever, from Fury O'Shea and The Divil, happiness is about choosing to live in the present.

The Year of Lost and Found

Hanna Casey menait une vie dorée, à Londres, jusqu'à ce qu'elle surprenne son mari avec une autre femme. Bouleversée, elle rentre chez sa mère, dans son village natal, sur la côte ouest de l'Irlande. Rapidement, elle trouve un poste de bibliothécaire et s'investit pleinement dans ce travail qui la passionne. Cependant, ce nouveau départ, à 51 ans, est loin d'âtre facile. D'autant que la cohabitation entre Hanna et sa mère tourne rapidement au vinaigre. Hanna songe alors à la maisonnette délabrée, perchée sur la falaise, que lui a léguée sa grand-tante. Elle décide de s'y installer et de rénover la bâtisse, avec l'aide de Fury, un maçon charmant et enjoué qui commence... par lui prêter une chèvre pour tondre sa pelouse ! Grâce à lui, Hanna découvre peu à peu la vie farfelue du village, les personnalités attachantes qui le composent, mais aussi les liens forts unissant ces familles isolées dans la campagne irlandaise. Quand elle apprend que la bibliothèque est menacée de fermeture, Hanna sait qu'elle pourra compter sur ses nouveaux amis pour l'aider à se battre et à surmonter cette épreuve.

La petite bibliothèque du bonheur

An emigrant to England in the 1970s, Felicity Hayes-McCoy knew she’d return to Corca Dhuibhne, Ireland’s Dingle peninsula, a place she had fallen in love with at seventeen. Now she and her husband have restored a stone house there, the focus for this chronicle in response to reader requests for an illustrated sequel to her memoir, The House on an Irish Hillside. Enough Is Plenty celebrates the seasonal rhythms in and around the author’s house and garden at the western end of Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. It is about ordinary small pleasures, such as the smell of freshly baked soda bread, that can easily go unnoticed, and offers recipes from Felicity’s kitchen and information on organic food production and gardening. It views the year from a place where a vibrant 21st-century lifestyle is still marked by Ireland’s Celtic past and the ancient rhythms of Samhain (winter), Imbolc (spring), Bealtaine (summer) and Lughnasa (autumn). In this way of life, health and happiness are rooted in awareness of nature and the environment, and nourishment comes from music, friendship and storytelling as well as from good food. * Foreword by Alice Taylor * Also by this author: A Woven Silence

Enough Is Plenty

An Irish Legend retold. Why is Finn's thumb special? When Finn needs to know something all he has to do is bite hard on his thumb! How did Finn come to have such a special thumb? Large print and uncomplicated text with illustrations on every page make this ideal for beginner readers.

Finn's Thumb

The tip of the Dingle Peninsula, at the westernmost edge of Europe, is one of Ireland's most isolated regions. For millennia, it has also been a hub for foreign visitors: its position made it a medieval centre for traders, and the wildness of its remote landscape has been the setting for spiritual pilgrimage. This seeming paradox is what makes Dingle and its western hinterland unique: the ancient, native culture has been preserved, while also being influenced by the world at large. This rich heritage is best understood by chatting with the people who live and work here. But how many visitors get that opportunity? Starting with Dingle town, Felicity Hayes-McCoy takes us on an insiders' tour of the region, interviewing locals along the way, ranging from farmers, postmasters and boatmen to museum curators, radio presenters and sean-nos singers. A resident for the last twenty years, Felicity offers practical information and advice as well as cultural insights that will give any visitor a deeper understanding of this special place.

Dingle and its Hinterland

How do we know that what we remember is the truth? Inspired by the story of her relative Marion Stokes, one of three women who raised the tricolour over Enniscorthy in Easter Week 1916, Felicity Hayes-McCoy explores the consequences for all of us when memories are manipulated or obliterated, intentionally or by chance. In the power struggle after the Easter Rising, involving, among others, Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, the ideals for which Marion and her companions fought were eroded, resulting in an Ireland marked by chauvinism, isolationism and secrecy. By mapping her own family stories onto the history of the State, Felicity examines how Irish life today has been affected by the censorship and mixed messages of the past. Absorbing, entertaining and touching, her story moves from Washerwoman’s Hill in Dublin to London and back again, spans two world wars, a revolution, a civil war and the development of a republic, and culminates in Ireland’s 2015 same-sex marriage referendum. • Also by this author: Enough is Plenty

A Woven Silence

'A page-turning novel filled with wonderful characters. Curl up and treat yourself to the perfect escape' Sinéad Moriarty Ordinary people. Extraordinary secrets ... It's business as usual in the sleepy town of Lissbeg on the west coast of Ireland, but, as local librarian Hanna Casey gathers material for an exhibition on Ireland's struggle for Independence, secrets revealed in her Great-Aunt's diary expose her own family history of love, dishonour and revenge. Will Hanna risk personal and professional fallout by keeping those war-torn secrets to herself, or will she honour the exhibition's spirit of shared storytelling? Meanwhile, newly-wed Aideen has just had her first baby and becomes convinced that she needs to find her own dad, whom she's never known. But is she really prepared for the consequences? Hanna and Aideen each face decisions and it soon becomes clear that, when old wounds are opened and forgotten memories disturbed, history is never just about the past. Will they discover that finding happiness is all about living in the present?

Felicity Hayes-McCoy

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