![]() Tash, her hairdresser and friend is eccentric and larger than life and Mel is appropriately cold and hard. Her husband Laurie is OK, in spite of certain things or should I say thing he has done and I love the relationship with her children Flynn and Alice, probably because I can relate. I really love Fran, in spite of her being very naive and suburban (notice that I didn’t say middle-class because so am I). This is a very well written book with some great characters. But I would have told my husband or at least taken someone I could trust into my confidence. If I had witnessed something so awful, I would want to know why. In a way though, I can see why she has done it. ![]() What’s worse is that she doesn’t tell her husband as she knows he will be horrified at her intervention. Fran is a natural helper, but unfortunately she is no Miss Marple and she puts herself in a dangerous situation, one which she does not understand until it’s too late. The police don’t seem to be doing much and for some bizarre reason, Fran befriends Mel, the mother of the murdered boy. It’s a peaceful suburb where she lives with husband Laurie, not the kind of place where you expect to see a murder being committed. She watches in horror as the killers kick away the box he is standing on, a noose around his neck. In her most recent bestselling novel for adults, The Hungry Road, Marita has returned to the subject of the Irish famine.Where to start! While walking her dog Buddy, Fran witnesses a teenage boy being hanged in the woodland behind her house. Marita has won several awards, including the International Reading Association Award, the Osterreichischer Kinder und Jugendbuchpreis, the Reading Association of Ireland Award and the Bisto Book of the Year Award. Marita has also explored the world of fantasy with her book In Deep Dark Wood. ![]() A Girl Called Blue follows the life of an orphan, trying to find who she really is in a cold and strict orphanage. Safe Harbour is the story of two English children evacuated from London during World War ll to live with their grandfather in Greystones, Co Wicklow and was shortlisted for the BISTO Book of the Year Award. No Goodbye, which tells of the heartbreak of a young family when their mother leaves home, was recommended by Book Trust in their guide for One Parent Families. 1 on the Bestseller List and won the BISTO BOOK OF THE YEAR Award. Marita has written more books for children which were also very well received. It was also filmed by Young Irish Film Makers, in association with RTÉ and Channel 4. It has been made a supplementary curriculum reader in many schools and is also used by schools in Northern Ireland for EMU (Education through Mutual Understanding) projects. The book has been read on RTÉ Radio and is very popular in schools, both with teachers and pupils. It has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Bahasa, French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Irish. Published in May 1990, the book was an immediate success and become a classic. When she heard a radio report of an unmarked children's grave from the Famine period being found under a hawthorn tree, she decided to write her first book, Under the Hawthorn Tree. Marita was always fascinated by the Famine period in Irish history and read everything available on the subject. She has four children with her husband James, and they live in the Stillorgan area of Dublin. ![]() Born in Dublin in 1956 and brought up in Goatstown, Marita went to school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Mount Anville, later working in the family business, the bank, and a travel agency.
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