The Ludlow Ladies' Society
Jul 2017 · Black & White Publishing Ltd
4.3star
7 reviewsreport
Ebook
288
Pages
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About this ebook
From the bestselling author of The Ballroom Café and The Judge's Wife comes a new story of friendship, resilience and compassion, and how women support each other through the most difficult times.
Connie Carter has lost everyone and everything dear to her. Leaving her home in New York, she moves to a run-down Irish mansion, hoping to heal her shattered heart and in search of answers: how could her husband do the terrible things he did? And why did he plough all their money into the dilapidated Ludlow Hall before he died, without ever telling her?
At first Connie tries to avoid the villagers, until she meets local women Eve and Hetty who introduce her to the Ludlow Ladies' Society, a crafts group in need of a permanent home. Connie soon discovers Eve is also struggling with pain and the loss of having her beloved Ludlow Hall repossessed by the bank and sold off. Now, seeing the American Connie living there, the hurt of losing everything is renewed. Can these women ever be friends? Can they ever understand or forgive?
As the Ludlow Ladies create memory quilts to remember those they have loved and lost, the secrets of the past finally begin to surface. But can Connie, Eve and Hetty stitch their lives back together?
Praise for Ann O'Loughlin:
"The Ludlow Ladies' Society brought me to a beautiful place and into a circle of friends that I didn't want to leave. Unputdownable."
KATE KERRIGAN
"It's a heart-warming story ... but also an addictive page-turner with plenty of unexpected twists and reveals in store."
READER'S DIGEST
"A moving tale of loss, love and redemption"
BELLA MAGAZINE on The Ballroom Café
"A richly woven tale of passion, conspiracy, hypocrisy and a chilling secret."
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT on The Judge's Wife
"An uplifting read, the kind of book you want to gobble up in one sitting."
THE SUNDAY TIMES on The Judge's Wife
Connie Carter has lost everyone and everything dear to her. Leaving her home in New York, she moves to a run-down Irish mansion, hoping to heal her shattered heart and in search of answers: how could her husband do the terrible things he did? And why did he plough all their money into the dilapidated Ludlow Hall before he died, without ever telling her?
At first Connie tries to avoid the villagers, until she meets local women Eve and Hetty who introduce her to the Ludlow Ladies' Society, a crafts group in need of a permanent home. Connie soon discovers Eve is also struggling with pain and the loss of having her beloved Ludlow Hall repossessed by the bank and sold off. Now, seeing the American Connie living there, the hurt of losing everything is renewed. Can these women ever be friends? Can they ever understand or forgive?
As the Ludlow Ladies create memory quilts to remember those they have loved and lost, the secrets of the past finally begin to surface. But can Connie, Eve and Hetty stitch their lives back together?
Praise for Ann O'Loughlin:
"The Ludlow Ladies' Society brought me to a beautiful place and into a circle of friends that I didn't want to leave. Unputdownable."
KATE KERRIGAN
"It's a heart-warming story ... but also an addictive page-turner with plenty of unexpected twists and reveals in store."
READER'S DIGEST
"A moving tale of loss, love and redemption"
BELLA MAGAZINE on The Ballroom Café
"A richly woven tale of passion, conspiracy, hypocrisy and a chilling secret."
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT on The Judge's Wife
"An uplifting read, the kind of book you want to gobble up in one sitting."
THE SUNDAY TIMES on The Judge's Wife
Ratings and reviews
4.3
7 reviews
Midge Odonnell
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February 13, 2019
I was completely taken by surprise by this book, when I first started reading I thought it was going to be a bit of a miserable read but I soon got completely sucked in to this fictional world. Yes, a lot has happened to these women and not every negative is turned in to a positive, the author allows their trauma to affect them and leave wounds and scars whilst still giving the reader a sense of hope. The conceit to bring them together is the creation of the Memory Quilts for the Rosdaniel Fair and as a device it works beautifully. It allows Hetty to finally open up about the reality of her marriage, Eve to move on from her husband's suicide when they lose Ludlow Hall and for Connie to start coming to turns with the loss of her daughter Molly. Each of the three suffered in their marriages, each being abused in different ways, but have outlived their husbands and are struggling to forge forward with life. This could have been an entirely depressing tale but somehow the author makes it feel uplifting and generates a real sense of hope that the future can be better. It's not an easy journey for any of them but for Connie and Eve they really go through the wringer as new facts to light that send their accepted views of the world in a tailspin. With the support of each other and, to a lesser extent, the Ludlow Ladies Society, they manage to exorcise some of their demons and start to move forward. Poor Hetty doesn't seem to want to move any further forward but she does seem to be content in her new, solo life and that's okay too. Told at a gentle pace you have to wait for each of the women to reveal their particular heartbreaks. There are a couple of "surprises" along the way that the reader does see coming (or at least has an inkling about them) but I never felt cheated by the obvious being revealed. The story itself grips you and the leisurely pacing makes it somehow more absorbing, allowing you to feel that you really get to know the characters along the way. Ann O'Loughlin was a completely new author to me and I am so glad I stumbled across this book. I am now going to have to take a look at her previous books as if this is indicative of the quality of her writing how could I not?
1 person found this review helpful
Morag Mason
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February 22, 2018
A poignant and uplifting tale of love, loss and strong women. A wonderful read.
Lorraine Hegarty
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April 3, 2019
inspiring read,ladies who raise each other up
About the author
A leading journalist in Ireland for nearly thirty years, Ann O’Loughlin has covered all major news events of the last three decades. Ann spent most of her career with independent newspapers where she was Security Correspondent at the height of The Troubles, and was a senior journalist on the Irish Independent and Evening Herald. She is currently a senior journalist with the Irish Examiner newspaper covering legal issues. Ann has also lived and worked in India. Originally from the west of Ireland she now lives on the east coast with her husband and two children. Her debut novel The Ballroom Café was an eBook bestseller, and has sold over 220,000 copies to-date.
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