Jean Grainger

For twenty-one-year-old Grace Fitzgerald, life is finally looking bright. Orphaned as a child and later struck down by polio, she then endured years of cold indifference at the hands of her sister Agnes.

In 1940, an unlikely friendship bridges the Atlantic. Twenty-year-old Grace Fitzgerald lives in the seemingly peaceful Irish village of Knocknashee, exchanging letters with Richard Lewis, an American war correspondent stationed in London, as World War II engulfs Europe.

As long as Carmel stays in London, nothing can happen to shatter her perfect life. She has a wonderful marriage, a rewarding career and a great bunch of friends. As far as she's concerned, the sadness of her past can stay back in Ireland, where it belongs.

In the first book, What Once Was True, two families, one of grandeur and one of the working class, navigate the conflicts associated with the looming war ahead....

As someone raised in an orphanage, Carmel knows she should be grateful for a roof over her head and a respectable family, but she would love nothing more than to escape Birr, Co Offaly and get away from her husband, the monosyllabic Bill and his horrible sister forever.

Ariella Bannon has no choice: she must put her precious children, Liesl and Erich, on that train or allow them to become prey for the Nazis....

In the midst of it all, Dermot and Isabella Murphy try their best to maintain a life and a home for their family, but the trials and tribulations of life at Robinswood might just tear them all apart....

County Waterford, Ireland. 1946. Years of neglect have left the family seat of the Keneficks almost derelict, but the new Lord Kenefick and his charming young wife Kate are determined to breathe life into the old house once more. But the shadows of the past are ever lurking....

Carmel, a forty year old Irish woman is living a life that’s fine, not exciting or awful, just fine. Then one day, out of the blue, she gets a Facebook message, from a total stranger. With information that could transform her life, for better or for much worse....

After a very long week, I just want to go home and put my feet up, when a dramatic, decades-old secret is revealed. It shocks everyone in the family to the core, and it feels like everywhere I turn, where once there was trust and honesty, now there are nothing but lies....

As the world teeters on the brink of war in 1937, two young souls separated by an ocean are about to discover a connection that defies logic and time.

In the quirky Irish town of Ballycarrick, Sergeant Mags Munroe is busy. When Chance Your Arm, an internationally acclaimed showjumper, mysteriously vanishes and a troubled celebrity seeks refuge in a luxury Irish castle, Mags finds herself reluctantly drawn into two high-profile cases.

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland. 1975. Despite the best efforts to the older generation to maintain standards, short skirts, long hair and loud music are all the rage in Kilteegan Bridge....

Queensland, Australia, 1936 Sister Claire McAuliffe has been called from Dungarvan, County Waterford, to do God’s work in Jumaaroo, Queensland. Along with four other sisters, she is charged with setting up a Catholic school for the education of the gold rush families....

Mary Doyle arrives in Dublin in 1913, doomed, she fears, to a life of domestic service. Instead, however, she finds herself deeply affected by the social and political turmoil of a fledgling nation....

The day Titanic sails from Queenstown, taking with it the hopes and dreams of so many, Harp’s life too is devastated....

The opportunity of a lifetime lands in Peter Cullen’s lap and nothing is going to stop him taking full advantage, not even the misgivings of his wife.

If you want to disappear, start again, make a new life, a small Irish village is probably not the wisest place to go, since anonymity is not something we do well here....

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland 1974. Eli’s need to do his best by his patients is a cause for a bitter divide in the community. Emmet seems hell bent on going down a path in life his parents dread but they’re unable to stop him. Jack’s life and liberty are in grave peril as his secret faces exposure....

From rural Ireland, to the glitz of 1950’s America, from the orange groves of Israel to the dark streets of post-war Liverpool, The World Starts Anew, is the fourth book in the best-selling Star and the Shamrock series....