Karen Ardiff

Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.

In 1950s Ireland and New York, young Eilis Lacey has to choose between two men and two countries.

Christina Noble overcomes the harsh difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to discover her destiny on the streets of Saigon. A true story.

A Terrible Beauty is the story of the men and women of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Irish and British, caught up in a conflict many did not understand and of the innocent men and boys, executed because of what transpired in The Battle of Mount Street Bridge. The British soldiers were the last of the Great War volunteers, who joined up together to fight the Germans. They knew that there was a strong chance they would die in France, but to die in Dublin would never have crossed their minds. The Irish Volunteers were weekend warriors many of whom had no idea they were about to take part in large scale battles on the streets of Dublin.

Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.

A Catholic girl finds herself in trouble in the ultra conservative Ireland of the 60s; a country where women are punished if they become pregnant out of wedlock.

When schoolteacher Kieran Johnson discovers that his father was not a French sailor (as he had been led to believe) but rather an Irish farmer, he looks to his mother for answers. When she refuses to provide any, Kieran travels to Ireland.