Mary Beth Keane

Gillam, upstate New York. A town of ordinary, big-lawned suburban houses. The Gleesons have recently moved there and soon welcome the Stanhopes as their new neighbours. Lonely Lena Gleeson wants a friend but Anne Stanhope - cold, elegant, unstable - wants to be left alone. It's left to their children - Lena's youngest, Kate, and Anne's only child, Peter - to find their way to one another. To form a friendship whose resilience and love will be almost broken by the fault line dividing both families, and by the terrible tragedy that will engulf them all. A tragedy whose true origins only become clear many years later...

There are two sides to every story - and every marriage in crisis . . . Malcolm, bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar, and when his boss finally retires, he seizes his chance. He sees unquantifiable magic and potential in the Half Moon and hopes to make it a bigger success. His wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career, but after years of trying for a baby, she's struggling to accept the idea that motherhood might not be in her future. She finds herself slipping away from both her career and her marriage. The bar is Malcolm's dream, and as she feels her youth start to fade, she wonders how to reshape her own life.

When a blizzard hits their upstate New York town on the same day that Malcolm learns some shocking news about Jess, and a regular at the bar goes missing, everyone is frozen in place for a single, pivotal week. In The Half Moon, award-winning author Mary Beth Keane carefully explores a marriage in crisis, what it takes to make a life with another person, and the true meaning of family. One tumultuous week. One marriage in crisis. One chance to begin again...

Rural Ireland, the 1960s, and Greta Cahill must abandon her deserted village to follow her fearless sister Johanna onto a ship bound for America. It's here in New York that she steps out of her sister's shadow and in to a life of her own, rich with love, work and family. As the years pass Greta longs to revisit the past - to see her mother, to show her what she has made of herself - but she must protect a family secret, decades old. So when her children conspire to unite the worlds she's kept so carefully apart, Greta fears she could lose it all...