My Mother's Children by Annette Sills

 

Irish Mancunian Carmel Doherty’s life is unravelling. She has just lost her mother Tess and brother Mikey, her marriage to Joe is coming apart at the seams and her thirty-year friendship with Karen is on the rocks.

While clearing out her childhood home, Carmel discovers that her mother gave birth to a baby in an Irish Mother and Baby home when she was sixteen, a place notorious for its mass burial of babies and illegal adoptions.

Carmel goes on a quest for the truth about her troubled mother’s past. Her roller-coaster journey takes her from her comfortable Manchester home to the west of Ireland and to London's theatre land. It’s a journey that leads her to ask: Can we ever escape our own family history or is our destiny in our DNA?

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About The Author

 

Annette Sills was born in Wigan, Lancashire to parents from County Mayo, Ireland. Her short stories have been longlisted and shortlisted in a number of competitions including the Fish Short Story Prize, the Telegraph Short Story Club, Books Ireland Magazine and the emigration anthology Something about Home. Her first novel, The Relative Harmony of Julie O'Hagan was shortlisted in Rethink Press New Novels Competition 2014. Her second, My Mother's Children, was published by Poolbeg Press in March 2021. Annette currently lives in Manchester with her husband and two children.
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My Review

 The author gives a story, although fictional, it gives us an idea of what really went on in Ireland when evil people abused and sold children. Talk about child trafficking this is one of the worst, or the bones of 800 children thrown in a septic tank, all true!
This is a story of family, love and loss, and finding new. Discovering after the loss of a parent and a sibling, that she has another brother she never knew about and a search filled with pain, and discovery.
Yes, I think this story should be told and we should remember what happened in Tauom, Ireland. The author gives us an idea of the heartache they caused with her moving family story, especially those that survived.

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Poolbeg Press, and was not required to give a positive review.