The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

                                                                                                                                                                               

Ebook:   288 pages      

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thriller,                                         

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Picador 20th March 2025

Source: NetGalley

First Sentences: Half past eight in the morning, on the twenty-second of October,1895, in Granville, on the Normandy coast. Stocky, plain and twenty-one, in her collar, tie, and boxy skirt, Mado Pelletier stands across the street from the little railway station holding her lidded metal lunch bucket, watching.

Setting: Paris (France, 1895)

Review Quote: Clever, ambitious, and richly researched. A slice of 1890s Paris that makes us see that our modern problems aren’t so modern after all! The Paris Express is a smartly structured novel that ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the doomed train itself. -- Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam

My Opinion:

Emma Donoghue has successfully used real life events as inspiration for some of her novels in the past. So I was not surprised to discover that ‘The Paris Express’ is based on the derailment at Montparnasse Station on October 22nd 1895.

The story begins at the start of the trains journey on that fateful day. We are introduced gradually to the vast cast of characters who were passengers and workers on the Granville to Paris train that morning. The main protagonist is Mado Pelletier a young French anarchist who has boarded the train intent on devastating action. As the journey proceeds we learn something of the social and political atmosphere of the period, through the conversations of the passengers which is very interesting and informative.

As always with this author’s novels the writing is excellent and obviously well researched. The account of the people involved in this tragedy included at the end of the novel enhanced my read immensely. For anyone interested in learning a little social history whilst enjoying a novel, this is a compelling thriller. 

Links to Previous Reviews :       Room  The Wonder  The Pull of the Stars  Haven                                                   Learned By Heart

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

Author Profile:

                                           
                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.


Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Emma Donoghue - Official Website   Twitter Profile.   Facebook Profile

Goodreads Profile

Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue

                                                  

Hardback:  323 pages                                                                                 

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBT,

Publisher:  Picador 2023

Source: Tywyn Public Library

Review Quote: Her touch is so light and exuberantly inventive, her insight at once so forensic and intimate, her people so ordinary even in their oddities ― The Guardian

First Sentences: My dear Lister, Last night I went to the Manor again.

My Opinion: The inspiration for this novel was Anne Lister, a real life person, whom I first came across as the character 'Gentleman Jack.' She is the protagonist in the television series of the same name, which I throughly enjoyed.

This heart breaking story of the love between Anne Lister and Eliza Raine is from a much easier period in her life when she was just fourteen and at boarding school. It is an insightful depiction of their school life and what was expected of young girls in society at this time. Also  we learn of life after school in Eliza's letters to Anne, some years later.

Emma Donoghue writes with an emotional intensity that draws me in and 'Learned by Heart' was no exception. The authors notes give the reader a great insight into just how much research was involved in writing this bitter sweet love story. I can recommend this compelling read to fans of the author, plus anyone interested in learning more about lesbianism in nineteenth century society.  

Links to Previous Reviews : Room  The Wonder  The Pull of the Stars  Haven

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Eliza and Lister have never been this wide-awake in their lives, and the Slope, with its curtains drawn wide, is bright with starlight. They talk in whispers, not to disturb the maids who lie sleeping on the other side of the box room. The question Eliza’s been needing to ask swells like a great berry in her mouth, and all at once she’s not scared to let it out, not scared at all, not scared of anything . . .

In 1805, fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine is a school girl at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was banished to this unfamiliar country as a little girl. When she first stepped off the King George in Kent, Eliza was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, but now she boards alone at the Manor, with no one left to claim her. She spends her days avoiding the attention of her fellow pupils until, one day, a fearless and charismatic new student arrives at the school. The two girls are immediately thrown together and soon Eliza’s life is turned inside out by this strange and curious young woman.

Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue’s mesmerising new novel, tells the heartbreaking story of the tangled lives of two women whose intense, and unlikely, relationship will change them for ever.

Author Profile and Photo From Amazon: 

                                                                        

                                        

                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.

Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites: 

Amazon Author Page   Goodreads Profile   Author Official Website   Facebook Profile

Twitter Profile 

Haven by Emma Donoghue

                                                   

Hardback:  252 pages      

Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Religion,                                           

Publisher: Picador 2022

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: Trian's stomach growls. He's not twenty yet, still growing and always hungry.

Favourite Quote: ““To travel is to turn the pages of the great book of life.” 

Review Quote: Brooding, dreamlike . . . it’s in descriptions of the physical world that Donoghue’s prose soars . . . Likewise, among themes that include isolation and devotion, its ecological warnings are its most resonant. ― The Observer

Setting: Skellig Michael, Ireland

Main Characters: Artt, Trian and Cormac

My Opinion:

 

With this latest novel Emma Donoghue has written a story with all the emotional intensity that we now tend to expect from her writing, but this one is so very different from her previous work. The setting for ‘Haven’ is the hostile environment of the island known as Skellig Michael off the coast of Ireland. The island is best known for its Gaelic Monastery, founded between the 6C and 8C and its colonies of gannets, puffins, razorbills and grey seals. The landscape is far from welcoming as it is extremely steep and inhospitable.

Very much character driven as the reader follows the growth and development of the three characters, Artt, Trian and Cormac. The Prior, Artt and his two chosen monks are thanks to a dream of the Prior’s destined to set sail to find a remote, uninhabited island on which to set up a monastery.

A haunting tale of belief and how the men cope, or don’t as the isolation impacts on them.

It was not an easy read but I am glad I persevered, as the author’s ability to depict atmosphere and mood makes it worth the effort. 

                              

                                          Skellig Michael       

Links to Previous Reviews:  Room  The Wonder  The Pull of the Stars

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?

Three men vow to leave the world behind them. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. Haven has Emma Donoghue’s trademark world-building and psychological intensity—but this story is like nothing she has ever written before.

Author Profile:

                                           
                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.


Photograph and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Emma Donoghue - Official Website   Twitter Profile.   Facebook Profile

Wikipedia - Skellig Michael

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

 

                                      

Paperback:  291 pages      

Genre: Literary Fiction                                           

Publisher: Picador 2020

Source: Tywyn Public Library

First Sentences: Still hours of dark to go when I left the house the morning. I cycled through reeking Dublin streets that were slick with rain.

Favourite Quote: “The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end, the doctor told her. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.” 

Review Quote: The Pull of the Stars has a fever dream-like quality . . . about as moving and absorbing as it gets ― Evening Standard

Literary Awards: Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2020), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2020), The Miramichi Reader's The Very Best Book Awards Nominee for Best Novel (longlist) (2021), RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Historical Fiction (2021)

Main Characters: Julia Power, Bridie Sweeney, Kathleen Lynn,

Setting: Dublin 1918

My Opinion: Emma Donoghue writes stories that although likely to upset me keep me riveted to the page. This time ‘The Pull of the Stars’ is a thought provoking read set in a Pandemic World. Not the most recent one, Covid 19, but one over one hundred years ago during WWI, ‘The Great Flu’. The similarities  are obvious but coincidental as the author completed writing this in 2018, before any of us realised what was heading our way.

The horrors of childbirth, mother and baby homes, the plight of orphans and a pandemic set in war torn Dublin in 1918. The story takes place over just three days as Nurse Power and her colleagues work, with everything against them. The setting is mainly in a small isolation ward, in the Maternity Unit of a Dublin Hospital, where expectant mothers are battling the flu. The author explains in notes at the end of the novel that although the novel is fiction it is ‘fiction pinned together with facts’ The protagonists are all fictional with the exception of Dr Kathleen Lynn, an actual activist within Sinn Fein.

In conclusion this is a very compelling and descriptive read, at times rather sickening, maybe too much so for some. You have been warned, otherwise highly recommended.

Links to Previous Reviews:  Room   The Wonder

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the great flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love, by the bestselling author of The Wonder and Room. 

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. 

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, caregivers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. 

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Author Profile:

                                           
                                                              © Una Roulston 2021. 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in October 1969, she is the youngest of eight children of Frances and Denis Donoghue (the literary critic). She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one eye-opening year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin (unfortunately, without learning to actually speak French). She moved to England, and in 1997 received her PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. From the age of 23, she has earned her living as a writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with Chris Roulston and their son Finn and daughter Una.


Photograph, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Emma Donoghue - Official Website   Twitter Profile.   Facebook Profile

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

Hardback:  291 pages                                                                                                
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Picador 2016
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentence: The journey was no worse than she expected.
Favourite Quote: “How could the child bear not just the hunger, but the boredom? The rest of humankind used meals to divide the day, Lib realized - as a reward, as entertainment, the chiming of an inner clock.
Review Quote: Fans of Emma Donoghue's first novel Room will not be disappointed with The Wonder . . . a tale of claustrophobic suspense and the intense relationship between a woman and a child . . . Donoghue's masterful way with words and imagery has the reader sharing Lib's scepticism and disdain for Anna and her family's naïve religious fervour. (Red Magazine)
Literary Awards: Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee (2016), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2016)
My Opinion:  As the successful author of the masterpiece that was Room I wondered if The Wonder was going to meet my expectations. It certainly did that, using as inspiration the true life stories of young people that claimed to survive long periods without food, Emma Donoghue has created with this novel another shocking yet riveting story about a child and a disturbing life experience.  The protagonist Anna is an eleven year old Irish girl whose family are claiming she is a living miracle. The other main character is Lib Wright a nurse a veteran of the Crimean War and trained by Florence Nightingale, who accepts an assignment to watch over Anna to try and discover if what is being claimed is all a sham!

At first the novel felt slow and took time to figure out with the complications of religion, myth and superstition that had a big influence on Anna's family and their reactions to what was happening to their daughter. It was difficult to understand just how far peoples beliefs would influence them, as it seemed they were prepared to let their own child die, as they persisted in believing in miracles.

A difficult subject to write a novel about and whilst reading you cannot but help find yourself thinking about how an earth the author is going to be able to bring the novel to a satisfactory and believable ending. Well without a doubt in my mind, she has succeeded in writing a realistic yet imaginative ending.

The Wonder will appeal to readers of historical fiction, stories set in Ireland and of course fans of Emma Donoghue's excellent writing.


Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:
An eleven-year-old girl stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether she is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a story.

Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, The Wonder—inspired by numerous European and North American cases of “fasting girls” between the sixteenth century and the twentieth—is a psychological thriller about a child’s murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes. Pitting all the seductions of fundamentalism against sense and love, it is a searing examination of what nourishes us, body and soul.



Author's Note - Transcribed from the book

The Wonder is an invented story. However, it was inspired by almost fifty cases of so-called Fasting Girls - hailed for surviving without food for long periods - in the British Isles, Western Europe and Northern America between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. These girls varied widely in age and background. Some of them (whether Protestant or Catholic) claimed a religious motive, but many didn't. There were male cases, too,though far fewer. Some of the fasters were put under surveillance for weeks on end; some started eating again, voluntarily or after being coerced, imprisoned, hospitalized, or force-fed; some died; others lived for decades, still claiming not to need food.


Video Trailer for '  The Wonder    ' Courtesy of YouTube

Author Profile

                                                                                                               Emma Donoghue © Mark Raynes Roberts, 2015. 

Emma was born on October 24th 1969 in Dublin Ireland, the youngest of eight children, of Frances and Denis Donoghue(the literary critic) She attended Catholic convent schools in Dublin, apart from one year in New York at the age of ten. In 1990 she earned a first-class honours BA in English and French from University College Dublin, and in 1997 a PhD (on the concept of friendship between men and women in eighteenth-century English fiction) from the University of Cambridge. Since the age of 23, Donoghue has earned her living as a full-time writer. After years of commuting between England, Ireland, and Canada, in 1998 she settled in London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner, Chris Roulston and their son, Finn and daughter, Una.

Photographs, Trailer and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.


My Review of Room    Emma Donoghue - Official Website     Goodreads Author Profile

Amazon - Emma Donoghue - Author Page