The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club

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The three women are Jo, Elizabeth and Lucy. Jo and Lucy are mother and daughter, Elizabeth is a long time friend of Jo. They live in a small isolated village on the west coast of Ireland. Changes in their lives bring them together and it is together that they start to work through things.

It was really interesting to get an insight into their lives and find out more about their pasts too. In the midst of her grief for her husband, Eric, Elizabeth starts to sort through some of his papers and makes an unexpected discovery. Eric was the local GP for a number of years, with Elizabeth and himself living in his rambling family home. Elizabeth had experienced a difficult and challenging marriage but she was very unprepared for the overwhelming discovery that Eric had left her in financial ruin. With a rambling old house, and a GP practice without a GP, Elizabeth has life-changing decisions to make as she embraces the next stage in her life. Life is going to change for Elizabeth, Jo and Lucy, but with their close and supportive relationship between them they know that they can handle whatever life is going to throw at them.Faith Hogan navigates beautifully between the community and the individual, forensically investigating moral issues and loyalties with an unflinching, yet humane eye. She is one of the most original and exciting writers to emerge from Ireland in recent times' – Afric McGlinchey She loved the silence and the roar of the ocean, the velvet sky and the inky water. Mostly she loved the fact that it made her feel alive in a way that nothing else could. She even loved the biting cold that ate through her skin and into the very marrow of her bones – in some absurd way, it warmed her from the inside out, as if it lit some fire that would never be extinguished.”

The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club was founded by Jo, who coerced her daughter and friend to join her. They all have their own problems but their midnight swims help them connect, talk, laugh and be inspired. . . . . This is a story which focuses on these three ladies, Lucy’s son and a writer who has come to stay in the village whilst he writes a novel and searches for his past. In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth enjoy midnight dips in the freezing sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. The idea takes root with others, and soon, the entire community is involved. This book focuses on three wonderful women, all at different stages in their lives. Jo is a lover of sea swimming, a brave thing to do in Ireland, and even more unusually, she likes to swim at night. Elizabeth finds herself persuaded to join Jo, and they find healing and comfort in this ritual. These are, like other work by the author wonderful stories on character, with some small measure of coincidence, links to each other and added wit. They are as intelligent and original as you come to expect, a joy to read and I suspect be re-read in the not too distant future. Her latest novel is The Guest House By The Sea - set in the west of Ireland - this is a book to fall in love with.I have to say, I guessed about one particular event in the book, but I was really happy it worked out that way.

The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club is the sixth novel by award-winning, best-selling Irish author, Faith Hogan. The audio version is narrated by Flora Montgomery. It’s not until the death of her husband Eric, Ballycove’s local GP, that Elizabeth O’Shea discovers the extent of his deceit. She knew he drank, but not that he gambled, and to her dismay, he was more prolific at both than he was at being successful as a GP. The level of debt he has left her with in the form of loans is staggering. Will she lose everything? Review: Snowbound With The Brooding Lord by Sarah Mallory @SarahMRomance @MillsandBoon @HarlequinBooks #publicationday #histfic #RegencyRomance #RespectRomFic As well as the women we also meet Dan who had rented a cottage in the village after leaving his high-flying job and needing some time out and Lucy’s teenage son Niall who hates his boarding school and wants to come home. First off, I adore Kate Atkinson, I'd probably be absorbed if she sent me her shopping list. I've also long been a fan of the short story collection - what a wonderful way to deliver a tale. And to have both rolled into one - in an a Yes, Yes and Yes! As always with Faith Hogan’s work this story is set in the most beautiful landscape of West Ireland. The author has described the village and coastline so well I could see, hear and smell the vision that nature had created.This is the book – the one that will finally make everyone understand why I’ve always been so passionate about Faith Hogan’s writing. In fact, there’s almost no need to write a review – it would be enough to just place the book, with its glorious cover that promises so much, into your hands and let you read the first few chapters. Whatever the books you usually read, whatever your age, whatever might be happening in your life, you will love this book every bit as much as I did – and that’s something I’ve never been so certain about. A tight knit story, with occasional lapses where some happenings are maybe a tad too fortuitous. But then this is a novel of hope and stretching oneself, so again, Why Not? I loved the idea of swimming at night in the bracing sea, although personally as a person who doesn’t swim, I found myself desperately wishing I could swim, and wondering if I have left it too late to learn. Just after I had finished this touching novel, a friend of mine was on holiday in Cornwall and found herself invited to join in with a group of women who went swimming every day together. The first day she acted as a spotter for some of the women, but the next day found herself braving the chilly waters and not thinking about the onlookers, to join in with them and swim for a few minutes. She found it both liberating and exhilarating, and it just made me feel even more inspired. To be honest, I think we were all a little in awe of your extensive vocabulary when it came to telling her where to go. The parish priest had to run into the pantry to hide his smirk. When Elizabeth’s husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy. Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start.

The three ladies all become closer and when Jo challenges them all to go for a midnight swim they decide to go for it. In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice that will bring the whole community together...Review: Single All The Way by Elaine Spires @ElaineSWriter @rararesources #blogtour #SinglesSeries #SingleAllTheWay As Faith Hogan sets the scenes so beautifully with her words I was soon invested with all five of our characters and was keen to learn what happens next for them. I’d love a sequel to this story as I feel there’s so much more to give. Maybe also I loved the characters and setting too much and I just don’t want to let them go yet … At first, this is Elizabeth’s story, her life falling apart after the death of her doctor husband – not through grief, as theirs was never the most loving or conventional of marriages, but because she discovers that he’s left her with life-changing debts through his drinking and gambling. But she is fortunate to have a close friend she can confide in as she contemplates her past and the uncertain future – and Jo is also able to help in a practical way. Her daughter Lucy is taking a much needed break from her pressurised job in A&E, a breathing space she’s never really taken to recover from the end of her marriage, spending time with her mother while she decides what to do next with her life, and she steps in for a while to run the doctor’s surgery in Elizabeth’s Georgian house on the hill. I have read and loved a few of Faith’s books now. By no means have I read everything that she has written but I am getting there. I read the synopsis for ‘The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club’ and it certainly sounded like the emotional but ultimately uplifting story that I have come to expect from Faith. So without further ado, I grabbed a cup of tea, grabbed my Kindle and settled down for an afternoon of reading. Overall I did enjoy reading ‘The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club’ but more about that in a bit. Each of the women dealt with their grief differently, and although there was anger, sadness and regret, none of them actually hated Paul – why was that?