Before My Actual Heart Breaks
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  • Published: 18 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473573369
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

Before My Actual Heart Breaks

Formats & editions
EBook
18 Feb 2021
Audiobook
18 Feb 2021
Paperback
28 Oct 2021
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An incredible debut exploring loneliness, grief and the long-lasting repercussions of trauma set against the backdrop of the Northern Irish Troubles.

WINNER OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD
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'Fresh, entertaining, funny and moving' RODDY DOYLE

'A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs' ANNE GRIFFIN, author of When All is Said
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'If I could go back to being sixteen again, I'd do things differently.'
'Everyone over the age of forty feels like that, you total gom,' says my best friend Lizzie Magee.

When she was young Mary Rattigan wanted to fly. She was going to take off like an angel from heaven and leave the muck and madness of troubled Northern Ireland behind. Nothing but the Land of Happy Ever After would do for her.

But as a Catholic girl with a B.I.T.C.H. for a Mammy and a silent Daddy, things did not go as she and Lizzie Magee had planned.

Now, five children, twenty-five years, an end to the bombs and bullets, enough whiskey to sink a ship and endless wakes and sandwich teas later, Mary's alone. She's learned plenty of hard lessons and missed a hundred steps towards the life she'd always hoped for.

Will she finally find the courage to ask for the love she deserves? Or is it too late?
  • Published: 18 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473573369
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384
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About the author

Tish Delaney

Tish Delaney was born and brought up in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Like a lot of people of her generation, she left the sectarian violence behind by moving to England. After graduating from Manchester University, she moved to London and worked on various magazines and broadsheets as a reporter, reviewer and sub-editor. She left the Financial Times in 2014 to live in the Channel Islands to pursue her career as a writer. Before My Actual Heart Breaks, her debut novel, will be published by Hutchinson in 2020.

Also by Tish Delaney

The Saint of Lost Things
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Praise for Before My Actual Heart Breaks

This hard-hitting book sets one woman's struggle with the hand dealt to her against the backdrop of the Northern Irish Troubles. This powerful debut examines the bonds of hate - and love - in a story of one family.

The List

This is in many ways a familiar story but it is told in such a fresh, entertaining, funny and moving way, it felt like I was reading something brand new.

Roddy Doyle

Delaney's writing is a beautiful wave flowing lyrically through the life of Mary Rattigan. A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs.

Anne Griffin author of WHEN ALL IS SAID

I did not expect this debut to turn into the most exquisite love story, but it did, and I was besotted.

Red

Mary is an eloquent narrator, conveying her and her husband's pain with exquisite and moving precision. The loneliness, grief and long-lasting repercussions of trauma are achingly real. The graphically described Troubles provide a powerful backdrop to this arresting and moving novel.

Daily Mail

Tish Delaney's writing is engaging and she has a strong eye for character and dialogue . . . Mary's story of finding love in the most unlikely of circumstances will draw readers in and you'd need a heart of stone not to be moved by the ending.

Daily Express

[T]here is much to admire about this debut, from the energetic voice to the way the Troubles are knitted through the timeline.

Irish Times

A really lovely book. I loved reading it.

Mariella Frostrup

Gorgeous prose . . . my heart broke several times . . . Mary's voice is so raw.

Good Housekeeping

Two pages into this book you know you've unlocked something special . . . the book is brightened up plenty by sunshine characters and the magnificence of Tyrone nature . . . Tish knows what she's talking about.

Irish Examiner

Fresh, raw and frequently funny. Her descriptions of the landscape are elegiac, and her ear for dialogue is flawless. Her exploration of loneliness, regret, and the deep repurcussions of trauma is exquisite. Above all, she writes poignantly of the human condition, creating an eloquent narrator who will live long in the reader's memory

Church Times