Showing results by author "Nuala O'Connor" in All Categories

Dublin, 1904. Nora Joseph Barnacle is a 20-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. She enjoys the liveliness of her adopted city and on June 16 - Bloomsday - her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland, and they surround themselves with a buoyant group of friends that grows to include Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach.

Dublin, 1904. Nora Barnacle is a 20-year-old from Galway, working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. On June 16th, Bloomsday, her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce - a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland. But as their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe.

Eighteen-year-old Ada Concannon has just been hired by the respected but eccentric Dickinson family of Amherst, Massachusetts. Despite their difference in age and the upstairs-downstairs divide, Ada strikes up a deep friendship with Miss Emily, the gifted elder daughter living a spinster's life at home. But Emily's passion for words begins to dominate her life. She will wear only white and avoids the world outside the Dickinson homestead. When Ada's safety and reputation are threatened, however, Emily must face down her own demons in order to help her friend.

In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed "the peasant countess" by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy. Becoming Belle is the story of the four years in between, of Belle's rapid ascent and the people that tried to tear her down. With only her talent, charm, and determination, Isabel moves to London alone at age 19, changes her name to Belle, and takes the city by storm, facing unthinkable hardships as she rises to fame. 

Anne Bonny is a young woman of privilege who is anything but comfortable, hell-bent on a voyage of self-realisation with or without the consent of those around her. Novelty-seeking, contrary, stubborn and bisexual, she is also neurodivergent, brave and capable of deep and enduring love. She spent all of two months actually being a pirate. Seaborne is the thrilling and sensuous imagining of the loss, frustration and desires that steer this lonely daughter of a plantation owner towards elopement, two marriages, two pregnancies, violence, trial for piracy and legendary status.

In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed 'the peasant countess' by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy. Becoming Belle is the story of the four years in between, of Belle's rapid ascent and the people who tried to tear her down. Reimagined by a novelist at the height of her powers, Belle is an unforgettable woman. Set against an absorbing portrait of Victorian London, hers is a timeless rags-to-riches story a la Becky Sharpe.

Nora Barnacle ist zwanzig und Zimmermädchen in einem Dubliner Hotel, als sie den zwei Jahre älteren James Joyce kennenlernt. Aus der zunächst körperlichen Beziehung entwickelt sich eine tiefe Liebe. Nora ist bereit, alles für Joyce aufzugeben - verlässt mit ihm sogar ihre Heimat Irland, trotz seiner Weigerung, sie zu heiraten. Schwierige Jahre in Triest, Pula und Zürich folgen, geprägt von großer Armut, von Joyce' Trunksucht und von seinem labilen Gesundheitszustand, vor allem aber von seiner Besessenheit: Für ihn zählt nur sein literarisches Werk.