Heritage of Secrets - Aoife Mannix

It’s 1970s Ireland: Jack O’Connell saves the life of an American sailor, Troy, who repays him by unwittingly stealing the love of his life, Kate O’Rourke. Jack fights to win Kate back, but his perfect life falls apart when she dies. In the fall out, he loses custody of their son, Cathal, to his embittered sister-in-law, but many questions remain unanswered. Twenty years later, Cathal goes missing in the US and Jack is drawn back – secrets and all – into the family that ostracised him after Kate’s death. Heritage of Secrets echoes Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd in more than just the name of the American sailor, Troy, but it is unmistakeably of a new age of sexual politics in a small town that frowns on any deviation from long-established norms.