The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club

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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. I love the sea and I had to read a story with a title like this. Here the sea is seen as a place where you can just be you, living in the moment, the salty water washes away your thoughts, your troubles and recharges you. Three women, all going through some sort of trauma or big change in their lives meets nightly at midnight to swim in the freezing waters of the Irish Sea. One recently divorced doctor who's raising a young teen on her own, her mother, a woman who has denied her ill health for a while and now has found out she's dying of cancer, and a recently widowed woman who after her husband's death has learned he was not the man she thought he was and has left her to deal with mounting debt that could leave her penniless.

Lucy comes for a short break but lands up by staying longer due to a few circumstances in the book. These three women, Elizabeth, Jo, and Lucy, are thrown together by circumstance and become fast friends. But Jo's world soon turns upside down, and Elizabeth, Lucy, and Niall rally around her. For peace and relaxation, Jo has been swimming in the frigid Atlantic water in the dark of night for years. It is hard for her friends to understand. But after Elizabeth's husband’s death, Elizabeth, on the spur of the moment, decides to join Jo on a midnight swim and soon realizes how refreshing it is,Three wonderful women come together in this book. Lucy after a divorce decided she needed a break from her job as a doctor in a hospital in Dublin. She and her son, Niall, went to visit her Mom in her rural seaside hometown. Her Mom, Jo, is a well-loved community member who gives much to those around her, but she has a secret issue she's not talking about. Elizabeth, the local doctor's wife, has recently become a widow and has found that her husband died leaving her with crippling debt, their large house and his practice. The women, become close friends, and find freedom and relief from their cares and worries when they, led by Jo, go swimming in the cold Atlantic waters at midnight. They form a close bond and provide courage and support for each other.

I’m sorry, Lucy, but consider yourself stepping into the TARDIS and re-emerging somewhere in the early 1970s. In search of some 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; to take a dip in the nip. Jo, Elizabeth and Lucy are all very different but they become a very tight group. They all have secrets between them too which as you read and get to know them begin to surface. This is a book set in Ireland, but which is the bigger character – Dublin or Carlinville? Why and what does it add to the story? I loved this read. It warmed my heart, and made my eyes well with tears. Yes, tissues are mandatory. I loved the way Elizabeth's character grew and strengthened, and Jo, what can I say about Jo? If I am ever in her position I only hope that I have her strength of character.

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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. She lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, four children and a very busy Labrador named Penny. She's a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger - except of course when it is raining! The setting of the small Coastal town of Ballycove in Ireland sounds like the perfect place to gather you thoughts and escape for some peace and quiet. The community of Ballycove sound wonderful too and always ready to support each other. 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.

Three women all facing a crisis in their lives - and set in an idyllic little town of Ballycove in Ireland. Dan’s scriptwriting job in London has come to an ignominious end and he’s taking the opportunity to see if he can write the novel he has always planned, and a quiet cottage in Ballycove is the ideal spot. It also presents what he sees as the last chance to find the birth mother who gave him up thirty years earlier.

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. The author did a great job of presenting these women as individuals and then who they were as members of the tight knit community in which they lived. There were times of sadness, where I almost shed a tear and others when I was almost laughing out loud. The characters were strong, brave women who had all been through tough times, but something about meeting nightly in the cold waters of the ocean where they felt the freedom only the vastness of the sea can bring brought out the very best in them. They went from being insecure and scared about what the future held to being ready and able to confront whatever life threw at them next.