Sunday, 22 August 2021

SPOTLIGHT SUNDAY - MAGDALENE LAUNDRY STORIES

 The following three books all involve Magdalene laundries in one way or another.

Title: The Magdalen Girls
Author: V.S. Alexander
Genre: Historical, Literary, Contemporary
Release Date: 27th December 2016

BLURB from Goodreads
Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.

Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.


PURCHASE LINKS
 
 
Title: The Girls With No Name
Author: Serena Burdick
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Park Row, Harlequin, Harpercollins             
Release Date: 7th January 2020

BLURB from Goodreads
Not far from Luella and Effie Tildon’s large family mansion in Inwood looms the House of Mercy, a work house for wayward girls. The sisters grow up under its shadow with the understanding that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters accidentally discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen older sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases.

But her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has made good on his threat to send Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s escape from the House of Mercy seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on each other and their tenuous friendship to survive.


PURCHASE LINKS
 
 

 

Title: My Mother's Children
Author: Annette Sills
Publisher: Poolbeg Press
Genre: General Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction
Release Date: 24th March 2021

BLURB from Goodreads
Irish Mancunian Carmel Doherty’s life is unravelling. She has just lost her mother Tess and brother Mikey, her marriage to Joe is coming apart at the seams and her thirty-year friendship with Karen is on the rocks.

While clearing out her childhood home, Carmel discovers that her mother gave birth to a baby in an Irish Mother and Baby home when she was sixteen, a place notorious for its mass burial of babies and illegal adoptions.

Carmel goes on a quest for the truth about her troubled mother’s past. Her roller-coaster journey takes her from her comfortable Manchester home to the west of Ireland and to London's theatre land. It’s a journey that leads her to ask: Can we ever escape our own family history or is our destiny in our DNA? 

Goodreads Link

PURCHASE LINKS
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Link to my review 

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