Jean Grainger

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.

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....

When a letter arrives one day threatening to shatter their peaceful and prosperous world, Lena and Eli have no option but face the dark reality of their situation. How best to do that, is something that drives a wedge between them....

Life is calm and fairly predictable. Until something unthinkable happens in our sleepy backwater. A crime, but not like anything I've ever seen before. It's a complete mystery. And it's up to me to solve it....

For eighteen year old Lena O'Sullivan, life is predictable and dull. A future of hard work, marriage to a local boy, and a family of her own one day is all she has to look forward to. People from her background know not to expect too much, but Lena yearns for something different....

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....

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

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....

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....

Robinswood, Co. Waterford, 1939. The once grand house is home to two very different families. Despite delusions of grandeur, Lord and Lady Kenefick and their adult children live a life of decayed opulence as the money needed to keep such a large house and grounds ever dwindles....

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....

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.

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.

The Great War is over, and the Roaring Twenties are promising a bright new future. Young people have broken free of the bonds that tied them to propriety and for the members of Cullen’s Celtic Cabaret it’s an exhilarating time to be alive.

Dublin, Ireland 1915. Eighteen-year-old May Gallagher is beautiful but restless, and longs for the freedom to live her own life, to decide her own destiny. Mollycoddled as the only remaining child of middle-class parents in the suburbs, she sneaks out to the theatre when she can.

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....

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....

For twenty-year-old Harp Devereaux, life should be idyllic....

As storm clouds of war gather over Europe, Grace Fitzgerald in Ireland and Richard Lewis in the United States find their lives irrevocably altered by the looming conflict.