The lost souls' reunion - Suzanne Power

In a rundown house on an Irish coastline a woman gathers the ghosts of her past to hear their story retold, a story that begins with her grandmother's marriage . . . Joseph Moriarty is not the man Noreen should have married, but by the time she discovers that her husband's heart is as barren as the scrap of land he farms, it is too late. Isolated from the nearest village by gossip and poverty, Noreen struggles to make a tolerable life for herself and her daughter, Carmel. But flame-haired Carmel's unusual ways seem likely to lead to violence and unhappiness, and so Noreen sends her away, far from the man she loves and the landscape she belongs to. In London Carmel loses herself in the gray streets of Soho, and the drab life that threatens to consume her altogether. But she is drawn back from the brink by a handful of women; her mother, her companions, her daughter Sive. And it is Sive who takes over the story, as she seeks for her own love and destiny.Moving, mysterious and gracefully written, The Lost Souls' Reunion is a strange and beautiful tale of love between mothers and daughters, between men and women, and between individuals and the land they live on.