Title: Kiss & Goodbye
Author: Patricia Rosemoor
Publisher: Dangerous Love Publishing
(ARC provided by Victory Editing Netgalley Co-Op)
Genre: General (Adult) Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers, Womens Fiction
Release Date: 15th October 2024
BLURB
Renny Butler races to Ireland in search of her mom Irene, who mysteriously vanished during a secretive trip. As Renny combs through Mom’s belongings, she uncovers a shocking she was adopted, and her birthmother was named Aghna Shaw. With her decade of experience as an investigative reporter, Renny digs deeper, working with enigmatic professor Connell Rourke, who runs the Lost Children website. Together, they explore the dark history of Castlemeehan, a former Magdalene Laundry where unmarried pregnant women like Aghna were forced to work, and their babies were taken and sold, often to American families—just as Renny had been.
As Renny and Connell untangle the sinister secrets of Castlemeehan, they uncover personal and historical tragedies, confront rising danger, and face a growing body count. Would she find Mom alive? Someone tries to stop her! Amidst viable danger, romance blossoms between her and Connell. Their pursuit of truth and justice reveals long-buried family secrets, reshaping Renny’s understanding of her past and her life forever.
REVIEW
The cover of this book becomes all the more poignant when you read the book. It is a photograph plays am important part in the story of Renny, Irene and Aghna.
The book flips between present day 2013 Ireland and Ireland in the 1980s which may not seem that long ago but when you read the content of the book you realise it was a world away from both the present days of 2013 featured in the book and our days now in 2025. Expectations, attitudes and cultures have changed significantly.
Back in the 80’s the Church and Government were very closely interlinked with each other. When the Church is accused of any wrongdoing, the Government tended to close ranks with the Church to brush any trouble away and as the saying goes “under the carpet”.
The book begins with Rose Horgen who in a hesitating as to whether she is doing the right thing by posting some letters, but she’s desperate and in a turmoil, every time she closes her eyes all she can see is “their tear-stained faces”, and all she can hear is “their howls and cries of grief”. She hurries to the post box and posts the letters she is somewhat distracted as she cannot stop ‘seeing’ thinking of “all those girls, all those babies”. Her next destination is St Maura’s but she never arrives there as she is knocked over by a car.
Renny receives a cryptic letter from Rose from Ireland, congratulating her on her career as a journalist and then editor for a large well-known magazine and saying she is proud of her for doing the article about Chicago’s Irish Americans, the letter also stresses she must stay away from Ireland. It’s whilst Renny is pondering what on earth the letter is and who it is from that she receives a telephone call from the proprietor of a guest house in Ireland informing Renny that her mother Irene has been staying there and has now gone missing. Renny didn’t even know her mother was in Ireland!
After notifying her boss at the magazine she is editor of Renny flies straight to Ireland in search of her mother Irene. Irene decides to stay at the same guest house and in the same room as her mother had been. Renny looks around the room for clues as to why her mother was in Ireland. Then Renny comes across her mother’s treasure box, which her mother had insisted she promise to never open. Renny wonders why her mother has brought this treasure box all the way to Ireland with her. Thinking it must be somehow relevant to why her mother suddenly decided to visit Ireland without even telling her. Renny opens the treasure box and looks through the documents, discovering that she was adopted. There is also a photograph of a young woman holding a baby. Renny notices how much she looks at the woman in the photograph, the hair of the woman in the photograph being so like her own now. She turns the photograph over to read what is written on the back, it says Aghna Shaw and Mirad. So now Renny know she was adopted in Ireland and her birth mother was called Aghna Shaw. Renny’s journalistic mind cannot help but think that her mother Irenes disappearance is something to do with her being adopted and them receiving letters from Rose.
Of course, Renny speaks to the Garda about her mother Irene’s disappearance. Renny decides to contact Professor Connell Rourke who runs the Lost Children of Ireland Website and along with some other individuals they have formed a network of people who help to reunite children with their birth parents. Some of the individuals involved with the network prefer to stay in the shadows so they can continue to help without alerting those who wish the dark history of Irelands lost children to remain in the past. At first Connell is off standish and quite rude and short with Renny but she persists and when he realises, she isn’t going away and is determined to find both of her mothers he decides to help and use his network to help Renny however they can. Renny and Connell come together and share what they already know and then continue together to delve into the dark history of Castlemeehan, the former Magdalene Laundry where unmarried pregnant women like Aghna and others considered “too pretty” that they would be “temptresses” were also taken by their own families! The young girls/women at Castlemeehan were forced to work long hours doing arduous tasks in the laundry. Their work was in exchange for a roof over their heads and just enough food to keep them healthy enough to carry their babies to term. Then Castlemeehan would arrange the adoption of the majority of the babies. Many were sold to American families, in fact Renny discovers that her mother Irene, still sent regular payments to Ireland to benefit those that were supposed to have cared for those at Castlemeehan.
Renny and Connell become closer and there are romantic feelings between them. Though there isn’t 100% trust between the pair as there’s a point later in the plot that Renny doubts Connells intentions, even considering him dangerous. Connel is also keeping secrets from Renny that explain his heavy dislike of reporters of any sort and the reason he left America himself to come to Ireland. It seems like Renny is getting too close to answers when she is threatened multiple times, followed and there’s even an attempt to kill her too! Who wants to keep their secrets hidden so much they would kill her? Then strange murders start occurring which worries Renny even more, as she wonders if her mother Irene is already dead.
I really enjoyed reading this book, in fact I found it difficult to put down! I find the subject of the Magdalen Laundries, Mother & Baby Homes and the part that Irelands Churches and Government played in the selling of babies equally fascinating and horrifying.
I loved the characters of Renny and Connell, falling in love with each other yet at the same time not telling each other the whole truth, both keeping facts from the other. I adored the way Renny interacted with both her mothers giving them equal respect and loving and caring about both in slightly different ways.
I also really loved Aghna, alone in a harsh world, finding herself pregnant with no where to turn and ending up in the even more harsh environment at Castlemeehan, basically used, abused and her baby snatched away from her and sold. I admired Aghna’s rebellion, her determination and even her surrender to what she had no way of controlling. When the title of the book “Kiss and Goodbye” is revealed to be a phrase said to those whose babies were being removed from them to be sold it had me in tears. I don’t think I will ever think of the phrase and not remember the story of Aghna and her Mirad revealed in this book.
I thoroughly enjoyed disliking or if I’m totally honest absolutely hating Bishop Nevan Flaherty and Reverend Mother Francis Xavier Cronan, being both horrified and disgusted at how they treat those they were supposedly “caring” for. Though this book is fiction I am fully aware of cases covered in the media where similar situations have occurred with people discovering they were sold and their birth mother forced to work in the laundries to pay for the “care” they had received from the nuns.
Two characters I felt sorry for were Rose Horgen & Sean Maddox. Rose was both victim and perpetrator really. Her conscience bothered her so much she had to do something, no matter the risk to herself in an attempt to right the great wrongs done at Castlemeehan. Personally, I believe Rose was taken advantage of and coerced into the position she found herself in, doing to others the exact thing that had been done to her. Her feelings for “right and wrong” won in the end and it was her letters that triggered the secrets being revealed. Sean Maddox was also a victim and a perpetrator but in a different way to Rose. He seemed such a quiet, introverted man, who did attempt to give Renny information but at the same time tried to discourage her digging any further into the dark history of Castlemeehan.
My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were that the “story” felt so “real”, that the book felt almost more “memoir” than fiction. I also think this book would make an amazing TV mini series or film. I’d love more from these characters perhaps plots centred around the Lost Children of Ireland site that Connell, Renny & their network could run. It would be interesting learning other stories and it would raise awareness that this sort of abuse actually occurred.
Summing up, this book may be fiction, but these women & children existed, they still do, and still experience trauma without any full closure. The powers that be in Ireland still seem to want to avoid the topics of Magdalene Laundries, Mother & Baby Homes and the result such as sold children, families ripped apart not to mention the baby remains found at Tuuam. It makes you wonder if the whole truth will ever come out. Will these families ever be given their rights to have/do whatever gives them peace. Awareness of went happened, the fact the last Mother and Baby home didn’t close until 1990, the last Magdalen Laundry closed in 1984, this isn’t that long ago, this isn’t ancient history. It is however a dark history that both deserves and needs to have a bright light to be shone on it.
