The Sisters O'Donnell
The Sisters O'Donnell

Author: Lyn Andrews

Publisher: Headline

Published: 2010-03-04

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0755376307

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New start. New lives. New troubles. 'This book had me gripped from beginning to end. A definite must read' Real reader review ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Love, betrayal, tragedy - all in this book. A truly wonderful author' Real reader review ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'I can't get enough of Lyn Andrews' books. Please keep them coming!' Real reader review ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ______________________ 1920s Liverpool is the beautifully portrayed setting for The Sisters O'Donnell - a delightful saga about three young Irish women building new lives for themselves, from bestselling author Lyn Andrews. Perfect for fans of Anne Baker, Dilly Court and Nadine Dorries. Throughout County Tipperary the three sisters were known as the Sisters O'Donnell. They all have red hair, but little else in common. Together they move to Liverpool in the 1920s to make a new life for themselves - although each sister intends to go about it in her own sweet way. Gina wants to be a star of the theatre, Mary-Kate wants to find a husband, and Bridget, shy, gentle Bridget, just wants to escape the Troubles. But when they get to Liverpool they realise that fame and fortune are thin on the ground as, indeed, is work. And their money is running out fast... The sisters have a long way to go before they fulfil their dreams - will the bonds of sisterhood be enough to hold them together? What readers are saying about The Sisters O'Donnell: 'An absolutely brilliant book, really well written, I just couldn't wait to turn the page to see what would happen next!' 'The best book I have read for ages' 'This book will tug at your heart strings and prove hard, if not impossible, to put down'

Mortal Blessings
Mortal Blessings

Author: Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

Publisher:

Published: 2014-09-08

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781594714085

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In this lyrical adieu to her mother, renowned Catholic essayist, poet, and professor Angela O'Donnell explores how the mundane tasks of caregiving during her mother's final days—bathing, feeding, taking her for a walk in her wheelchair—became rituals or ordinary sacraments that revealed traces of the divine. With Joan Didion's grasp of grief, the spiritual playfulness of Mary Karr, and the poetic agility of Kathleen Norris, Angela Alaimo O'Donnell narrates the events that followed her mother's fall and the broken hip that led to surgery. As O'Donnell and her sisters cared for their mother's failing body during the last days of her life, they unconsciously observed rituals that began to take on a deeper importance. Bathing her each morning was a kind of baptism, the nightly feeding of pie took on a Eucharistic significance, trimming and polishing nails became a kind of anointing. Beyond the seven there are the myriad sacraments they made up: the sacrament of community via cell phone, the sacrament of wheelchair pilgrimage around the nursing home, and the sacrament of humor and laughter. This deeply human portrait of loss is balanced by the surprising grace found in letting go; it will resonate with any spiritual reader but especially caregivers and those currently in grief.

Riding the Bus with My Sister
Riding the Bus with My Sister

Author: Rachel Simon

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0547344848

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A “heartwarming, life-affirming” memoir of a relationship with an intellectually disabled sibling: “Read this book. It might just change your life” (Boston Herald). Beth is a spirited woman with an intellectual disability who lives intensely and often joyfully, and spends most of her days riding the buses in Pennsylvania. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers, her community—though some display less patience or kindness than others. Her sister, Rachel, a teacher and writer, camouflages her emotional isolation by leading a hyperbusy life. But one day, Beth asks Rachel to accompany her on public transportation for an entire year—and Rachel accepts. This wise, funny, deeply affecting book is the chronicle of that remarkable time, as Rachel learns how to live in the moment, how to pay attention to what really matters, how to change, how to love—and how to slow down and enjoy the ride. Weaving in anecdotes and memories of terrifying maternal abandonment, fierce sisterly loyalty, and astonishing forgiveness, Rachel Simon brings to light a world that is almost invisible to many people, finds unlikely heroes in everyday life, and, without sentimentality, wrestles with her own limitations and portrays Beth as the endearing, feisty, independent person she is. “With tenderness and fury, heartbreak and acceptance . . . Simon comes to the inescapable conclusion that we are all riders on the bus, and on the bus we are all the same.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

The Death of Bees
The Death of Bees

Author: Lisa O'Donnell

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2013-01-02

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0062209868

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Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved. Marnie and her little sister, Nelly, are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren't telling. While life in Glasgow's Maryhill housing estate isn't grand, the girls do have each other. Besides, it's only a year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both. As the New Year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? Lennie takes them in—feeds them, clothes them, protects them—and something like a family forms. But soon enough, the sisters' friends, their teachers, and the authorities start asking tougher questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls' family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart. Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of three lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for one another.

The Red Skirt
The Red Skirt

Author: Patricia O'Donnell-Gibson

Publisher: Self Publisher

Published: 2011-07-29

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 9780983611202

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Impressionistic and dreamy, a nine-year-old girl immediately feels that she might be called by God when a Catholic missionary speaks to her third grade class at a Catholic school. The idea of this calling embeds itself into her, haunting her through elementary and high school, after which she chooses to enter the convent. Her story follows the five years she spent as an Adrian Dominican nun struggling to balance her desire for a secular life with her great fear of turning her back on God's call. Her stories are sad as well as joyous, inspiring as well as unsettling.

This One is Ours
This One is Ours

Author: Kate O’Donnell

Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 0702261734

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Sixteen-year-old Sofie is a dreamer, an artist and a romantic. When she goes on exchange to Paris, she is expecting magnificent adventures of the heart and mind. Yet France isn't what she imagined. It's cold and grey, and she finds speaking another language exhausting. Sofie's more homesick than lovesick. But then her host sister, Delphine, and fellow artist Olivier show Sofie a different side of Paris, and she starts to question her ideas about art, beauty and meaning. About everything. There's truth in what her best friend, Crow, has been saying all along: the earth is in crisis and people need to take notice. But what can one girl do? Will Sofie be able to find the courage to fight for change? This One is Ours is a call to action for anyone who feels helpless about the state of the world, as well as an ode to all the tiny beautifuls that make it worth saving.

Journal of a Soul
Journal of a Soul

Author: Pope John XXIII,

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2000-07-09

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 0567123065

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From the age of fourteen until his death at the age of eighty-two, Pope John XXIII kept what he called his 'Journal of a Soul' - the record of his growth in holiness. Elected Pope at the age of seventy-eight he impressed the world with the breadth of his mind but also with his simplicity and his will to be at the service of others. This book covers the full span of his long career from the seminary at Bergamo to his brief but transformative papacy.His journal is a rare and intimate record of the spiritual life of a much-loved figure. As he wrote, 'my soul is in these pages.'