Tish Delaney

"I’m not yours and you’re not mine. That’s what I say to his dreaming face as I watch the shadows of his dark eyelashes dance by the light of a Tilley lamp. It’s not the first lie I’ve told myself.When I was sixteen, I wanted to fly. I was going to take off like an angel from heaven and leave the muck and madness of Northern Ireland behind as I struck out across the west coast of Donegal heading straight for America. Nothing but the Land of Happy Ever After would do for me. It was him I blamed for clipping my wings. I fashioned a cage out of self-pity then and slipped it over my head like a boned corset to hold myself together and to lock him out. But hate cannot bind two people to each other for twenty-five years, no matter how many dark skies have to be weathered. Only love can do that. It’s the first truth I’ve told myself."--Publisher.

Before My Actual Heart Breaks

Saint of Lost Things

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD SHORTLISTED NOVEL BEFORE MY ACTUAL HEART BREAKS I had dreams once, but never for anything as extravagant as happiness. Still, Auntie Bell and me have fresh cream cakes every Saturday. They're sweet enough to take the edge off. I hope they're enough to get me through being outed as a fraud. Turns out, I'm more my missing mother's daughter than anyone first suspected. There was a time when Lindy Morris escaped to London and walked along the Thames in the moonlight. When life was full and exciting. Decades later, Lindy lives back with her Auntie Bell on the edge: on the edge of Donegal and on the edge of Granda Morris's land. Granda Morris is a complicated man, a farmer who wanted sons but got two daughters: Auntie Bell and Lindy's mother, who disappeared long ago. Now, Lindy and Bell live the smallest of lives, in a cottage filled with unfulfilled dreams. But when the secrets they have kept for thirty years emerge, everything is rewritten. Will Lindy grasp who she is again? Praise for Tish Delaney and Before My Actual Heart Breaks 'This is in many ways a familiar story but it is told in such a fresh, entertaining, funny and moving way, it felt like I was reading something brand new' Roddy Doyle 'I was besotted' Red 'Gorgeous prose . . . My heart broke several times' Good Housekeeping

The Saint of Lost Things

Mary Rattigan sogna di volare via: da una madre violenta incapace di amore, da un padre buono ma privo di spina dorsale, da un’educazione bigotta, dalla miseria dell’Irlanda del Nord funestata dai Troubles. Ma i sogni di libertà possono finire in fumo in una sola notte di sconsideratezza adolescenziale: dopo un atto sessuale a metà tra il desiderio di ribellione e lo stupro, Mary si ritrova incinta durante un ritiro in campagna con la scuola. Per salvare l’onore della famiglia, viene costretta a sposare in fretta e furia un vicino di fattoria, John, a sua volta cresciuto col marchio di figlio “bastardo”. E così, appena sedicenne, Mary si trova imprigionata in una vita matrimoniale (che in fretta le porterà altri figli) di cui non riesce a capire i contorni: non educata all’amore, non è in grado di riconoscere i segnali che il marito le manda; non sapendo cosa significhi volersi bene, non concepisce che qualcuno la possa amare. La vita trascorre così all’ombra di malintesi che si trascinano per decenni, e solo all’ultimo Mary riuscirà a capire il marito e i sentimenti che lo hanno animato. Forse c’è ancora il tempo per raddrizzare le cose e vivere un istante di felicità.

Tish Delaney

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