Historia Live Dublin returns on 1 May with four more bestselling authors of historical fiction.
The theme is When History Meets Mystery featuring Sinéad Crowley, Amanda Geard and Carmel Harrington.
The discussion, led by Hazel Gaynor, will look at novels with dual or multiple timelines and narrators, the skill of creating suspense on the page, the difficulties of weaving a historical mystery across time, and the creative challenges of setting a story in the past.
The event will be held at Pearse Street Library, 139–144 Pearse St, Dublin 2, on Wednesday, 1 May, from 6.30 to 8pm, and will be followed by an open Q&A session. After this there will be time to meet the authors and get books signed.
Tickets for this free author event are available from Eventbrite.
Historia Live Dublin is brought to you by the Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
The authors
Sinéad Crowley
Sinéad Crowley is the Irish Times best-selling author of the DS Claire Boyle crime series as well as the dual timeline mystery The Belladonna Maze. Her latest historical mystery, A Maid on Fifth Avenue will be published in September 2024. A former television journalist with Irish national broadcaster RTE, she now works in media development.
The Belladonna Maze is set in Hollowpark, an old house in the west of Ireland. At the heart of the gardens is an intricate maze, named after a deadly poison. If you know the way through, it’s magical, a hiding place and playground like no other. If you don’t, it’s a place of fear and sinister riddles, where a young girl once went missing and was never seen again.
Grace comes to Hollowpark as a nanny for young Skye FitzMahon. Soon the mysterious past of Hollowpark has seduced her. Who is the woman she sometimes glimpses in an upstairs window? Or the apparition who keeps showing up unexpectedly, pleading, ‘Find me’. And how can she fight her growing attraction to Skye’s father?
Amanda Geard
Amanda’s debut, The Midnight House, centres on the disappearance of a young woman in 1940, and the disgraced journalist who, eight decades later, sets out to find her. It was inspired by Amanda’s renovation of a 200-year-old house and was a Richard and Judy pick. Her second novel, The Moon Gate, grew out of a childhood spent reading Banjo Paterson and exploring Tasmania’s rugged west coast. She has been a creative writing tutor at the University of Galway, and lives in County Kerry with her family.
1939: Grace Grey travels from London to the wilds of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by her Irish neighbour, Daniel, Grace finally learns to live. But when Daniel is called to the frontline, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them.
1975: Artist Willow Hawkins and her new husband, Ben, are left a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. Confused and delighted, they set out to unmask Towerhurst’s previous owner — unwittingly altering the course of their lives.
2004: Libby Andrews never knew the truth about her father Ben’s death. When she travels to London and discovers a faded photograph, a long-buried memory is unlocked, and she begins to investigate. But are some secrets best left buried?
Carmel Harrington
Carmel is an internationally bestselling author from Wexford, where she lives with her husband, children, and rescue dog, George Bailey. She is a regular on Irish TV screens and radio, and has been a guest speaker at Literary events in Ireland, UK and USA. She was also Chair of Wexford Literary Festival for three years. Her novels, including The Girl From Donegal, A Mother’s Heart and The Moon Over Kilmore Quay have been Irish Times, Sunday Times, USA Today and Amazon bestsellers. Her latest novel, The Lighthouse Secret, is published on 28 March, 2024.
1951, Ireland. and on the windswept Cork coast, the lighthouse-keepers’ wives wait, watching the sea. Their husbands are coming home. But there’s one secret that can never be revealed.
2023, Maine: Decades later, Mollie Kenefick receives an anonymous note: family secrets never stay buried. The only person she can ask is her grandmother – however, Beth made a vow that she swore never to break. But someone knows what happened that summer in 1951, and it seems they’re not happy keeping silent.
Hazel Gaynor
Hazel is an award-winning New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail and Irish Times bestselling historical novelist. Her debut, The Girl Who Came Home, won the 2015 RNA Historical Novel of the Year, and her novels have since been shortlisted for the 2016 and 2020 Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year, the 2019 HWA Gold Crown Award, and the 2021 Grand Prix du Roman Historique. Her latest novel, The Last Lifeboat, was published in June, 2023, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Irish Book Awards and received the 2024 Audie Award for Best Fiction Narrator. Hazel’s work is translated into 20 languages and is published in 27 territories to date. She lives in County Kildare, Ireland, with her family.
The Last Lifeboat opens in Liverpool in 1940. Alice King is aboard the SS Carlisle to escort a group of children to Canada as overseas evacuees. Meanwhile in London, as the Blitz bombs rain down and the threat of German invasion looms, Lily Nicholls anxiously counts the days for news of her son and daughter’s safe arrival.
But when disaster strikes in the Atlantic, Alice and Lily – one at sea, the other on land – will quickly become one another’s very best hope. The events of one night, and the eight unimaginable days that follow, will bind the two women together in unforgettable ways.
Get your free tickets for Historia Live Dublin from Eventbrite.
And a reminder that the next Historia Live in London is in April, with Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Stacey Halls and Beezy Marsh talking about Bad Reputations: fraudsters, fortune-tellers and fallen women with AJ West.
It’s on Tuesday, 16 April, from 7 to 10.30pm, upstairs at the Wheatsheaf pub near Tottenham Court Road. See more about the event or buy a ticket.
