A Wrong to Sweeten

By Joy Martin

Every love can be torn apart by the right secrets…

In 1800s Ireland, two schoolfriends and a family divided by envy and greed.

The powerful O’Briens of Crag Liath in County Clare were proud of their great estate and their descent from Brian Boru, the last High King of Ireland.

But they were also a family divided by envy and fraternal resentment.

Tom, the elder brother, lived only for today, while Dermot obsessively loved the estate that could never be his.

Two Limerick schoolfriends, Miliora and Rosaleen, had their ambitions, too, but when their lives intertwined with the O’Briens, they found that envy can darken to madness, that love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, breed side by side – and that even love that is true and deep can be dishonoured by secrecy and hypocrisy.

Joy Martin was born in Limerick and is a descendant of the O’Brien family. She trained as a journalist and worked on Dublin’s Evening Press – then moved to writing news for the Zambia Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC Home and External Services. She has also broadcast on radio in Ireland, Zambia and South Africa, and on British local radio stations. Joy Martin is the author of Twelve Shades of Black, a study of the lives of the people of the townships around Johannesburg. A Wrong to Sweetenis her first novel.