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The Home Scar

The Home Scar

From the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of Nothing But Blue Sky

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the Women's Prize longlisted author of Nothing But Blue Sky

'The home scar - that's what they call the mark limpets make on the rock when they return.'

'Wait, they leave the rock?'


'Of course. How else would they survive?


On opposite sides of the world, half-siblings Cassie and Christo have built their lives around work, intent on ignoring their painful past.

When a dramatic storm in Galway hits the headlines, they're drawn back there to revisit a glorious childhood summer, the last before their mother died. But their journey uncovers memories of a far less happy summer - one that had tragic consequences.

Confronted with the havoc their mother left in her wake, Cassie and Christo are forced to face their past and - ready or not - to deal with the messy tangle of parental love and neglect that shaped them.

The Home Scar is a luminous and precise story about the inheritance of loss and the possibility of finally making peace with it.

Praise for Nothing But Blue Sky

'A piece of perfection . . . the best book I've read all year' Irish Examiner

'Touching and enthralling' Sunday Times

'What a beautiful novel . . . Elegant, understated, subtly powerful and rings so perfectly true' Donal Ryan

©2023 Kathleen MacMahon (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • A powerful story about legacy and loss and the possibility of reconciliation
    Irish Times

About the author

Kathleen MacMahon

The Home Scar is Kathleen MacMahon's fourth novel. Her debut, This is How it Ends, spent five weeks at the top of the bestseller lists in Ireland, and was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice in the UK. It was followed by The Long, Hot Summer, also a bestseller in Ireland, and Nothing But Blue Sky, which was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021. Kathleen is a former radio and television journalist with Ireland's national broadcaster, RTÉ, and she lives in Dublin with her family.
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