Monica McInerney Books in Order

Eliza Miller grows up with a loving but fragile mother and two glamorous godmothers who whisk her away on adventurous holidays and promise to always look out for her. After tragedy strikes, Eliza retreats into a safe, small life, until an invitation to Edinburgh drops her into a noisy new family and prompts a search for the truth about her past and her father.

Eighty-something Lola Quinlan is determined to return to Ireland more than sixty years after she left, taking her granddaughter Bett and great-granddaughter Ellen along. Their journey from the Clare Valley to Lola’s homeland stirs up buried memories, old promises and new questions about family, ageing and what home really means.

After a terrible accident tears her close-knit family apart, Ella O’Hanlon flees Australia for her uncle Lucas’s ramshackle, book-filled house in London. There, surrounded by eccentric relatives and ghosts of the past, she is slowly pushed to confront her grief, her anger and the possibility of forgiving herself and the people she loves.

For more than thirty years, Angela Gillespie has sent a bright, cheerful Christmas letter from her remote South Australian sheep station, glossing over every family drama. One exhausting year she types the unvarnished truth and accidentally sends it, unleashing chaos just as a crisis pulls her away and leaves her husband and children to finally face their own lives.

In this short story, Lola Quinlan’s cluttered secondhand shop is a haven for local teenagers getting ready for the school dance. When she overhears plans for a cruel prank, Lola and her friends devise a clever scheme to protect the targets and prove that kindness can still win the night.

At the Valley View Motel in South Australia’s Clare Valley, eighty-four-year-old Lola Quinlan secretly invites a group of strangers to spend Christmas there and sends her family away. As her guests arrive with their own worries and wishes, Lola’s carefully laid plans and unresolved family grief collide in surprising, often funny ways.

When the eccentric Templeton family arrives from England to run a grand but crumbling country house in Australia, they captivate their neighbour Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Over the years, tangled friendships, betrayals and a devastating tragedy bind and divide the two families, until an unexpected reunion forces everyone to confront the past.

This collection gathers Monica McInerney’s short fiction into one volume, from early magazine stories to newer work. Through tales of diets, charity shops, holidays and turning points, she explores family ties, friendship and second chances with her familiar blend of warmth, humour and emotional insight.

Maggie Faraday grows up in a lively Tasmanian household with her young mother, four very different aunts and an eccentric grandfather, until a shocking event just before her sixth birthday shatters their world. Twenty years later, a family reunion overseas brings the Faraday women together again, uncovering long-buried secrets and reshaping their ideas of loyalty and love.

Sylvie Devereaux is the only non-artist in a famous family, the dependable one who makes everyone else’s lives run smoothly. A humiliating moment at her sister’s lavish wedding jolts her into questioning that role, and a brave new start slowly leads her toward a life, and love, that belong to her alone.

Travel agent Harriet Turner is used to arranging other people’s journeys, not changing her own. When her foster sister Lara vanishes on the eve of a themed tour in Cornwall, Harriet is left shepherding a busload of devoted TV fans, juggling a charming screen detective and uncovering the painful secrets that shaped her family.

As children, Anna, Bett and Carrie were The Alphabet Sisters, a singing trio coached by their formidable grandmother Lola. Years after a bitter betrayal tore them apart, Lola lures them home to her country motel for a spectacular birthday celebration that forces them to face old hurts, shared grief and the possibility of forgiveness.

Lainey Byrne believes she has life in Melbourne under control until family duty drags her to rural Ireland to run a rundown bed and breakfast for a year. Between demanding guests, alarming news from home and a reunion with childhood friend Rohan, everything she thought was settled starts to spin out of shape.

Stuck in a Dublin delicatessen and nursing a broken heart, Eva Kennedy escapes to Melbourne to reinvent herself as someone bolder and more glamorous. When she meets overworked London designer Joseph Wheeler, their holiday romance forces both of them to face the truths they have been avoiding.

Australian chef Maura Carmody heads to Ireland for a month-long food and wine tour, expecting a straightforward work trip. Instead she stumbles into mishaps, rivalries and an intriguing local man, and must decide where her heart and future really lie.