Summer at the Garden Cafe: A Novel (Finfarran Peninsula, 2) - Softcover

The second in Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s Finfarran Peninsula series—and sequel to The Library at the Edge of the World—is a heartwarming story about secrets between four generations of Irish women and the healing powers of books, love, and friendship.

Lissbeg’s Garden Café is a place where plans are formed and secrets shared, and where, even in high tourist season, people are never too busy to stop for a chat. But twenty-one-year-old Jazz—daughter of the town’s librarian, Hanna Casey—has a secret she can’t share. Still recovering from a car accident, and reeling from her father’s disclosures about his longtime affair, she’s taken a job at The Old Forge Guesthouse, and begun to develop feelings for a man who’s strictly off-limits.

Meanwhile, involved in her own new romance with architect Brian Morton, Hanna is unaware of the turmoil in Jazz’s life—until her manipulative ex-husband, Malcolm, reappears, trying to mend his relationship with their daughter. Watching Jazz unravel, Hanna begins to wonder if secrets that Malcolm has forced her to keep may have harmed their beloved daughter more than she knew.

But then again, the Casey women are no strangers to secrets, something Hanna realizes when she discovers a journal, long buried in land she inherited from her great-aunt Maggie. Ultimately, it’s the painful lessons of the past that offer a way to the future, but it will take the shared experiences of four generations of women to find a way forward for Hanna and her family.

Irish author Felicity Hayes-McCoy built a successful UK-based career as an actress and writer, working in theatre, music theatre, radio, TV, and digital media. She is the author of two memoirs, The House on an Irish Hillside and A Woven Silence: Memory, History & Remembrance, in addition to an illustrated book Enough Is Plenty: The Year on the Dingle Peninsula. She and her husband divide their time between London and Ireland.