Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountShop small, give big!
With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.
Start giftingLimited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up todayBefore My Actual Heart Breaks
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreSummary
Brought to you by Penguin.
An unforgettable love story with the energy of Derry Girls and the intensity of The Ferryman
__________________________________________________
‘If I could go back to being sixteen again, I’d do things differently.'
'Everyone over the age of forty feels like that, you total gom,' says my best friend Lizzie Magee.
When she was young Mary Rattigan wanted to fly. She was going to take off like an angel from heaven and leave the muck and madness of troubled Northern Ireland behind. Nothing but the Land of Happy Ever After would do for her.
But as a Catholic girl with a B.I.T.C.H. for a Mammy and a silent Daddy, things did not go as she and Lizzie Magee had planned.
Now, five children, twenty-five years, an end to the bombs and bullets, enough whisky to sink a ship and endless wakes and sandwich teas later, Mary’s alone. She’s learned plenty of hard lessons and missed a hundred steps towards the life she'd always hoped for.
Will she finally find the courage to ask for the love she deserves? Or is it too late?
© Tish Delaney 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
Reviews
This is in many ways a familiar story but it is told in such a fresh, entertaining, funny and moving way, it felt like I was reading something brand new. Two pages into this book you know you've unlocked something special . . . the book is brightened up plenty by sunshine characters and the magnificence of Tyrone nature . . . Tish knows what she's talking about.A really lovely book. I loved reading it.
Delaney's writing is a beautiful wave flowing lyrically through the life of Mary Rattigan. A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs. I did not expect this debut to turn into the most exquisite love story, but it did, and I was besotted. Expand reviews