Annette Sills Books

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? A percentage of the author's royalties will be donated to ICAP, a mental health Charity offering therapy for the Irish in Britain.

'The serious issues which affect every family are told with exceptional craftsmanship - and it made me laugh too. Perfect." Eamonn O'Neal - The Manchester Evening News Julie O'Hagan is worried. It's time for daughter Bridget to start school but the ordinary suburb where Julie was raised is not that ordinary any more. Organic eateries and wine bars have opened up, the Broccoli Brigade have moved in and vegetarian types in beanie hats with hummus-guzzling kids are taking up all the places at Broadoak, the best primary in the area. Husband Billy is loving and clever and looks like Jim Morrison but he is prone to mood swings. Billy is adamant Bridget will not go to St. Joseph's, the local Catholic school, but Julie is equally determined she will not end up in her old school, Priory Road. Both have their reasons, buried in the past. The hunt for a school for Bridget is on.