http://www.monicamcinerney.com/
Monica McInerney is the Australian-born Dublin-based author of the best-selling novels The Trip of a Lifetime, Hello from the Gillespies, The House of Memories, Lola’s Secret, At Home with the Templetons, Those Faraday Girls (The Faraday Girls in the USA), Fa
mily Baggage, The Alphabet Sisters, Spin the Bottle (Greetings from Somewhere Else in the USA), Upside Down Inside Out and A Taste for It; the novella Odd One Out and a short story collection All Together Now, published internationally and in translation in more than 12 languages. Her articles and short stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Australia, the UK and Ireland.
Monica’s latest captivating novel is The Godmothers. Monica explains in great detail on her website, how she came about writing The Godmothers, the link to the full background for this story is below. I have copied a couple of her intriguing paragraphs to give a taster of what sounds like a dramatic and sensitively expressed novel.
‘As a writer, family secrets have long fascinated me. I’m particularly interested in the stories that one generation keeps from the next. The Godmothers is a family mystery – 30-year-old Eliza is in search of the father she’s never met and the truth about her mother’s troubled life – but it’s also a story of moral dilemmas. Is it always better to tell the truth? Or is it sometimes better – kinder – to lie?
The Godmothers took me two years to write, research and edit. Before I wrote a word, I spent several months imagining every detail of my main characters’ lives: Eliza; her troubled mother Jeannie, and her godmothers Olivia and Maxie, Jeannie’s two best friends. I wanted to explore the idea and role of modern godmothers. Once a religious relationship, it’s become one of support, friendship and guidance, special because it is a chosen position. In the novel, the young Eliza grows up secure in the knowledge of her mother’s love, knowing she is also loved and watched over by her two godmothers – until a tragic event changes her life.’
http://www.monicamcinerney.com/researching-and-writing-the-godmothers/
Further Links & Interviews
Reviews
This wonderful, glamorous and brilliantly written novel had me gripped from start to finish. We swoop across the world with Eliza as she leaves Australia for Britain to find the truth about her mother —charming but tricky and tragic Jeannie. Romantic, moving and funny, the action-packed plot considers families and how to survive them. While we root for our lovely heroine every inch of the way, my favourite character was Sullivan, the adorably formal 11-year-old whom Eliza meets on a plane. – The Daily Mail
All in all, The Godmothers delivers all that it promises. Warm, funny, honest, deeply sad at times, but ultimately hopeful. Classic Monica McInerney, and I mean that as the highest of praise. – Theresa Smith Writes
Australian-born, Dublin-based author Monica McInerney breaks our hearts and puts them back together again in a warm, compelling and compassionate story about secrets, lies, hope and sorrow, about families, friendships and love in its many forms. – The Lancashire Post
