The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club

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I was hooked from the get go, how initially 2 women come together at night to find escspe from daily life, it made me want to go midnight swimming and I don't particularly like swimming or the sea!

A wonderful, emotional journey of three friends as they form a bond of love and hope when life is not all that. When Elizabeth's husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, she must turn to her friend, Jo for help, who calls in her daughter, Lucy to run the village surgery. Leaving her city life, and past demons, behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start. I just adore Faith Hogan’s books, and she’s one of my top go-to authors for a guaranteed beautiful, atmospheric, and authentic read. Lovely story of female friendship and small community living on the west coast of Ireland, where the water is clean, hence the joys of midnight dips in the sea. Focussing on Lucy escaping pressures of working in A&E in Dublin, Elizabeth who's husband's death left secrets and problems and Jo delighted to have her daughter and grandchild around. With subplots of the impact of having children when not married and how it is for women, when men have married them, to hide their homosexuality. Wonderfully told. Elizabeth's husband died leaving huge debts putting to risk her future. Fortunately her friend Jo is there to comfort and to help her. Lucy, Jo's daughter, and her son take some time away from the city to go to Ballycove for a little holiday but destiny has other plans for them. They begin the Midnight Swimming Club to stay together at the end of the day but soon enough it becomes a freeing experience to savour and to enjoy.The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club is the sixth novel by award-winning, best-selling Irish author, Faith Hogan. The audio version is narrated by Flora Montgomery. It’s not until the death of her husband Eric, Ballycove’s local GP, that Elizabeth O’Shea discovers the extent of his deceit. She knew he drank, but not that he gambled, and to her dismay, he was more prolific at both than he was at being successful as a GP. The level of debt he has left her with in the form of loans is staggering. Will she lose everything? She loved the silence and the roar of the ocean, the velvet sky and the inky water. Mostly she loved the fact that it made her feel alive in a way that nothing else could. She even loved the biting cold that ate through her skin and into the very marrow of her bones – in some absurd way, it warmed her from the inside out, as if it lit some fire that would never be extinguished.” The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club was founded by Jo, who coerced her daughter and friend to join her. They all have their own problems but their midnight swims help them connect, talk, laugh and be inspired. . . . . This is a story which focuses on these three ladies, Lucy’s son and a writer who has come to stay in the village whilst he writes a novel and searches for his past. Lucy comes for a short break but lands up by staying longer due to a few circumstances in the book.

THE AUTHOR: Faith Hogan is an Irish award-winning and bestselling author. She was born in Ireland. She gained an Honours Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Degree from University College, Galway.When Elizabeth’s husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy. Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start.

The story is broken down into parts (a.k.a months) and effortlessly flows between these multiple points of view. I really enjoyed hearing from each of their perspectives and seeing how the story unfolded. While I saw some reveals coming, others were a pleasant surprise. Hogan's writing style was poignant, with elements of humour to expertly break up the dramatic moments. ABOUT 'THE LADIES MIDNIGHT SWIMMING CLUB': Three women, three different stages of life, united by one thing: the chance to start again. In search of some solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice; to take a dip in the nip.All the characters are going through, and have gone through, immense change in their lives, and have a lot to deal with. There’s a very strong sense of community and friendship in this book.

This time, I’m delighted to introduce you to three women who may not have made all the right decisions in life, but bouyed up by each other and a mad notion to take on the nearby water by moonlight find that the solution to their worries is perhaps much closer to hand than they at first believed. Dan’s scriptwriting job in London has come to an ignominious end and he’s taking the opportunity to see if he can write the novel he has always planned, and a quiet cottage in Ballycove is the ideal spot. It also presents what he sees as the last chance to find the birth mother who gave him up thirty years earlier. To be honest, I think we were all a little in awe of your extensive vocabulary when it came to telling her where to go. The parish priest had to run into the pantry to hide his smirk. Lucy has recently returned to the West of Ireland, with her son, intending it to be temporary, but the pull of home is strong, and she soon finds herself becoming a vital part of the community. I’m sorry, Lucy, but consider yourself stepping into the TARDIS and re-emerging somewhere in the early 1970s.These three women, Elizabeth, Jo, and Lucy, are thrown together by circumstance and become fast friends. But Jo's world soon turns upside down, and Elizabeth, Lucy, and Niall rally around her. For peace and relaxation, Jo has been swimming in the frigid Atlantic water in the dark of night for years. It is hard for her friends to understand. But after Elizabeth's husband’s death, Elizabeth, on the spur of the moment, decides to join Jo on a midnight swim and soon realizes how refreshing it is, Set in a small coastal Irish town, The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club is told from multiple perspectives. There's Elizabeth, whose life feels like it's only just beginning following the death of her husband. There's her best friend Jo, whose daughter Lucy and son Niall visit from Dublin. Lucy agrees to help at Elizabeth's late husband's GP clinic and in the interim becomes a founding member of The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club alongside Jo and Elizabeth. Finally, there's Dan, a visiting writer from London who's come to Ballycove to finally discover where his life began. The swimming represents so much and is a delightful focus and novelty in this beautiful novel…. Although swimming in Ireland in January?! Whew! However, I love swimming and I’ve experienced the same good feeling once in a very cold lake in Switzerland and it was amazing, exhilarating, and unforgettable. Now, I can barely handle California ocean swims and yearn for the warm east coast waters and summer vacations of my youth. Ladies midnight swimming club is a beautifully written heart-wrenching, memorable book about love, friendships and regaining oneself. I won't be forgetting this one. The author did a great job of presenting these women as individuals and then who they were as members of the tight knit community in which they lived. There were times of sadness, where I almost shed a tear and others when I was almost laughing out loud. The characters were strong, brave women who had all been through tough times, but something about meeting nightly in the cold waters of the ocean where they felt the freedom only the vastness of the sea can bring brought out the very best in them. They went from being insecure and scared about what the future held to being ready and able to confront whatever life threw at them next.