The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club

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It's a story about friendship, family, village community, and finding the truth about oneself in an unexpected place. And the title... swimming in a cold Irish sea with your friends sounds like a dream to me.

I saw the writing on the wall for one subplot from early on in the novel, making it all too neat, but then I thought, Why Not? I have to warn you, there will be tears, but also, there’s a lot of unfettered lunacy and heart warming tenderness. I do hope you’ll join me for this next adventure, it looks like the best one yet 🙂 Perhaps it was the sense of how completely irrelevant all her fears were in the face of the utter vastness of the sea and sky around her. She loved the silence and the roar of the ocean, the velvet sky and the inky water. Mostly she loved the fact that it made her feel alive in a way that nothing else could.” Her latest novel is The Guest House By The Sea - set in the west of Ireland - this is a book to fall in love with.This book focuses on three wonderful women, all at different stages in their lives. Jo is a lover of sea swimming, a brave thing to do in Ireland, and even more unusually, she likes to swim at night. Elizabeth finds herself persuaded to join Jo, and they find healing and comfort in this ritual. Lovely story of female friendship and small community living on the west coast of Ireland, where the water is clean, hence the joys of midnight dips in the sea. Focussing on Lucy escaping pressures of working in A&E in Dublin, Elizabeth who's husband's death left secrets and problems and Jo delighted to have her daughter and grandchild around. With subplots of the impact of having children when not married and how it is for women, when men have married them, to hide their homosexuality. Wonderfully told.

What follows is a story of friendship, self discovery and redemption. While on their own paths these women offer emotional support to each other, forming tight bonds regardless of their age and experiences. A stranger arriving into town sets tongues wagging. His name is Dan. Leaving the chaos of his London life behind him, Dan is looking to escape and the west of Ireland seems like the perfect answer. Dan has worked in the TV business but now, with an unexpected and forced time-out, he decides to re-evaluate his life. Dan has always had an ambition to write a novel and now the time seems right. Dan also has other areas of his life he needs to spend time exploring so a short-term rental near a small seaside village could be just the tonic he needs. I loved these women, they are lovely, funny, inspiring and brave. At the end I wanted to sign up for their club and to hug them. These three women, Elizabeth, Jo, and Lucy, are thrown together by circumstance and become fast friends. But Jo's world soon turns upside down, and Elizabeth, Lucy, and Niall rally around her. For peace and relaxation, Jo has been swimming in the frigid Atlantic water in the dark of night for years. It is hard for her friends to understand. But after Elizabeth's husband’s death, Elizabeth, on the spur of the moment, decides to join Jo on a midnight swim and soon realizes how refreshing it is, Lucy has recently returned to the West of Ireland, with her son, intending it to be temporary, but the pull of home is strong, and she soon finds herself becoming a vital part of the community.It is a moving story, dealing sensitively with several emotive issues. It is a tale of searching for the truth, coping with grief, overcoming obstacles and making the most of your life and opportunities, even when everything seems to be against you. Throughout the story it is the friendships and support characters give to each other that make it a beautiful, heartwarming read that I have no hesitation in highly recommending.