Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

If books were like hugs then this one would be one of the best kind. I love the characters, the way the girls love their dad Jim who sounds amazing. Although they struggle with their mum and believe her work as a midwife is more important than they are to her they eventually begin to understand each other. A really lovely story that I was sad to finish.

The first book I had read by this Author and I found it a bit slow at times. Enjoyable with a lovely family story of ups and downs, but a bit predictable.

When Martha returned to work as a midwife and handed her three daughters over to the care of their Nanny, May, she never considered the fact that her girls would become closer to their nanny than they ever were to her.
Nanny May has passed away and the three sisters now grown up with their own lives are devasted. How will they ever cope without their beloved Nanny May's love and advice?
When the solicitor informs them that letters were left for each of them and their father but can't be found the girls can't believe it. Is the last communication with their loved one gone forever?
A story that kept me turning the pages. Three sisters united together in grief despite leading very different lives. Jim,their father is an attentive and loving dad but their mother Martha was a strange one. She loved her job as a midwife and the mothers and babies loved her. She would do anything for them morning,noon and night but not much of that love and attention came her daughter's way. Her patients see her in a completely different light than her daughters do.
Having left them with the nanny all these years has she left it too long to show them love?
A sad and happy story with missed opportunities and many things left unsaid.
I really enjoyed this book as I do with all of Emma Hannian's books. It's so sad that this was her last one as Emma passed away earlier this year after her long battle with cancer. She is sorely missed.

I have conflicted feelings about this book. I found it a pretty decent read till I came to final section of the book where the author has written acknowledgements and other related notes. The heartfelt statements made in this section, and the way they were written made the rest of the book pale in comparison for me. This comes with the knowledge that the author passed away earlier this year after multiple battles with cancer. 

The story is of a close-knit family of five which does not really include the mother, instead it includes their 'Nanny' May. The three daughters are each battling their own demons but maintain a tenuous hold on their siblings and father. The tale begins with Nanny May's passing and we see how each deals with the situation and their feelings. The parts I liked involved how the sisters and father interact but I found it hard to have any feeling for the mother Martha. She is a pivotal part of the story, the people are who they are only because of her behaviour. Despite being so important, I could neither wholeheartedly dislike her or like her and likewise the treatment by her children towards her ranging from obedient to the downright rude. This conflict ( I need to sympathize with some part of a book in order to be fully vested) did not let me enjoy the book to the extent that I could have. After having read that note by the author though, I think I might appreciate some of her other books more.

I have to admit that, before all the publicity surrounding Emma’s illness last year, she was not an author that had been on my radar and I haven’t read any of her other books. Having finished Letters To My Daughters, I think this is a crying shame because her writing style is warm and charming but also perceptive and beguiling. I’m a huge admirer of a number of Irish writers and I’m ashamed that I haven’t discovered Emma’s work until now. I’m planning on catching up with her back catalogue and I hope that I can contribute something towards giving this book a wide audience in the UK. It certainly deserves it.

This is the story of a family – mother, father and three sisters – growing up in a seaside suburb of Dublin. They are a fairly ordinary family, insofar as any family is ordinary, which of course none of us really are because we all have our own family quirks, anomalies and internal tensions and, whilst these might seem unexciting on the face of things, they are the source of so much fascinating revelations that make up the backbone of great commercial fiction. This family is no different in being very different behind their polite social facade.

Social facades are a big theme in this book. To Martha, the matriarch, what the outside world thinks of her and her family (or, more specifically, the way her family reflects on her) is all consuming, to the detriment of everyone else. Her daughters seem to have been influenced by her behaviour to the point that each of them has acted in a way that panders to an outward perception of how they should behave, rather than being true to themselves. However, the death of their family nanny sets in motion a chain of events that blows their facades apart and is a catalyst for seismic changes in the family structure.

This is a book about the importance of family and relationships and having real love and support in your life. This family, outwardly, seems to have everything you could want but, none of that means anything if your relationships aren’t happy. Being honest with yourself and admitting to yourself and others when things don’t work is a central tenet of the story and the happy ending only comes when everyone stops pretending. It also dwells on the issue of what family bonds are, and do they come from blood or do we find them through love, whatever the source of that love might be. Family is a complicated issue in the modern world and this book explores that subject in an interesting way throughout and over several different story strands.

The characters in this book are all very well drawn and believable. As the eldest of four girls, I was very taken with the relationship between the sisters and how they are all there for each other, no matter what, although there are still things they individually feel they can’t share, due to their own internal hang ups. The relationships were totally authentic to me, reflecting the kind of feelings I have towards my own sisters, to whom I am very close, and this was the part of the book that was most appealing.

Oddly, given she is the hardest character to warm to and understand in the book, Martha is the one is probably most true to herself throughout. She is certainly an extreme personality but the author did a good job of giving her behaviour an emotional grounding that made her slightly more sympathetic than she might have been in less competent hands. I also appreciated the way that everything was not tied up so neat and happy at the conclusion of the book, as life isn’t like that. It is messy and difficult and disappointing and a book that an author wants a reader to believe in should reflect that. This isn’t a fairytale, it’s a slice of life that I savoured to the end.

This book was a warm, easy read that carried me along effortlessly through the pages, buried deep and obliviously as I was in the lives of the protagonists. Given what the author was going through while she wrote it, this is a remarkable feat and added another level of poignancy to the story, which is bittersweet. Despite the ease of reading it, the story was complex and rich and woven through with emotion and is an extremely rewarding read that deserves a wide audience. I hope it gets it.

I have always loved this authors books. I was saddened to hear of her death earlier in the year after a long battle with cancer. I have a soft spot for books set in Ireland and this one didn't disappoint. This is a very well crafted family drama - loved the relationship between the sisters. Even Marsha was a bit of a love/hate character.

I was up until 2.45 this morning finishing this book and even though I’m very tired now it was totally worth it. I couldn’t put it down. I have read a handful of Emma Hannigan books before and they just get better. Rose, Jeannie and Beatrice are sisters who know they have each other to help them through tough times. Not so much their mother Martha a midwife who has her babies , they just aren’t her own children. When their beloved Nanny dies the girls need each other to pull through with some surprises and heartache along the way.

I was so sad to hear of Emma’s passing the acknowledgements in this book are lovely.

What can I say about this book I LOVED ,LOVED ,LOVED it!! I truly didn’t want it to end!!

Martha and Jim have three daughters who are all very different and this book explores all their lives in a way which made me feel like I knew them personally. Martha dedicated her life to her career as a midwife and it was left to Nanny May to raise the girls and give them the mothers love they needed. When Nanny May passes away she leaves four letters one for each of the girls and one for Jim,

The letters disappear. Will the letters be found? What has Granny May written in the letters? These questions kept me turning the pages wanting to find out what would unfold.

This beautiful emotional story had me spellbound and I was routing for the characters to find happiness. I could relate fully with them and found parallels to people I personally know and love.

What shone through in the story is life is short and we all should find happiness when we can!! This is even more true as the author Emma Hannigan has passed away. Her writing and understanding of families is first class in this book and her love of writing clearly shone throughout the book .

I will be looking out for Emma’s previous novels. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! It is a beautiful , emotional and life affirming read . Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for my chance to read this five star book .

Letters to my Daughters, reading this story felt like living a whole life; complete with happy, sad and every imaginable emotion in between.