Antoinette’s dream in life is to be paid to read books but as a close second, she’s happy to write them instead.

She studied English and History at NUI Maynooth, followed by a career in public relations. Her debut novel, Home to Cavendish, was published by Poolbeg Press in 2019, the same year that Antoinette decided she’d had enough of 9 to 5 life and endless commuting.

Her decision to set up her own writing consultancy coincided neatly with the start of a global health pandemic but despite some setbacks, she has established herself as a successful business and ghost-writer. She recently moved to the Costa Blanca with her partner Ahmed. True to her Irish roots she spends most of her days convinced that it is going to start raining, any minute now.

The Secrets Left Behind, her second novel, is a multi-layered tale of the savage severing of maternal ties, a crumbling marriage built on conjecture, and the devastating impact on the next generation of women. It is set against the backdrop of the patriarchal regime once imposed by the Catholic Church in Ireland and spans the period from 1952 to 1981.