Set in a small coastal Irish town, The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club is told from multiple perspectives. There's Elizabeth, whose life feels like it's only just beginning following the death of her husband. There's her best friend Jo, whose daughter Lucy and son Niall visit from Dublin. Lucy agrees to help at Elizabeth's late husband's GP clinic and in the interim becomes a founding member of The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club alongside Jo and Elizabeth. Finally, there's Dan, a visiting writer from London who's come to Ballycove to finally discover where his life began. In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice that will bring the whole community together... In search of some solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice; to take a dip in the nip. At first, this is Elizabeth’s story, her life falling apart after the death of her doctor husband – not through grief, as theirs was never the most loving or conventional of marriages, but because she discovers that he’s left her with life-changing debts through his drinking and gambling. But she is fortunate to have a close friend she can confide in as she contemplates her past and the uncertain future – and Jo is also able to help in a practical way. Her daughter Lucy is taking a much needed break from her pressurised job in A&E, a breathing space she’s never really taken to recover from the end of her marriage, spending time with her mother while she decides what to do next with her life, and she steps in for a while to run the doctor’s surgery in Elizabeth’s Georgian house on the hill.

In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth enjoy midnight dips in the freezing sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. The idea takes root with others, and soon, the entire community is involved.

Of course, the cover reveal is, in many ways, just another step on the journey to publication. You know the way they say it takes a village to raise a child – well, books are a little like that! The Ladies Midnight Swimming Club is a beautifully paced and plotted story about the indomitable spirit of friendship told from the points of view of all the major characters. Despite, or maybe because of this, it flows seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly through the various crises the characters face. Review: The Tuscan Orphan by Siobhan Daiko @siobhandaiko @BoldwoodBooks @rararesources #blogtour #newrelease #BoldwoodBloggers #histfic #romance #WW2 #RespectRomFic #TheTuscanOrphan November 16, 2023 Elizabeth’s closest friend, Jo Harris is addicted to the natural high she gets from swimming at midnight in the icy Irish Sea off Ireland’s west coast. She manages to draw her friend into trying it, and during this intimacy Elizabeth reveals her problem. Jo is delighted to be able to offer a potential solution in the form of her daughter Lucy. Jo is an older lady who has lived in the tiny Irish village of Ballycove all her life. She is alone and looking frail but she is the heart of the community and always offering to help others, including Elizabeth as she has a suggestion. Her daughter Lucy is a doctor.

jessiecahalin on #Review: Secrets of the Shell Sisters by Adrienne Vaughan @adrienneauthor #RosshavenRomances #romance #RespectRomFic #SecretsoftheShellSisters This time, I’m delighted to introduce you to three women who may not have made all the right decisions in life, but bouyed up by each other and a mad notion to take on the nearby water by moonlight find that the solution to their worries is perhaps much closer to hand than they at first believed. If your book club is planning on including My Husbands Wives, do let me know. I’d love to hear how you get on and where your reading leads you…. Elizabeth's husband died leaving huge debts putting to risk her future. Fortunately her friend Jo is there to comfort and to help her. Lucy, Jo's daughter, and her son take some time away from the city to go to Ballycove for a little holiday but destiny has other plans for them. They begin the Midnight Swimming Club to stay together at the end of the day but soon enough it becomes a freeing experience to savour and to enjoy.These three women form The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club where they can swim away their troubles in the freezing cold waters of the Irish sea. It is a place they can be alone, gather their thoughts, talk, laugh, and listen. Dan’s scriptwriting job in London has come to an ignominious end and he’s taking the opportunity to see if he can write the novel he has always planned, and a quiet cottage in Ballycove is the ideal spot. It also presents what he sees as the last chance to find the birth mother who gave him up thirty years earlier.

MY THOUGHTS: Why have I never read anything by this author before? Her characters are stunning. They made themselves at home in my heart and I don't want to say goodbye to them.

Multibuys

This is a book set in Ireland, but which is the bigger character – Dublin or Carlinville? Why and what does it add to the story? Review: Welcome to the Cornish Country Hospital by Jo Bartlett @J_B_Writer @BoldwoodBooks @rararesources #blogtour #publicationday #BoldwoodBloggers #womensfiction #romance #RespectRomFic