The Making of Her

A moving, intergenerational novel set in 1990s Dublin about a woman reconnected with the daughter she gave up for adoption who gets in touch after thirty years, setting off an exploration into past secrets.

Dublin 1996. Joan Egan lives an enviable life. She and her husband, Martin, and daughter, Carmel, are thriving in Dublin at the dawn of the Celtic Tiger economic boom. But everything changes when Joan receives a letter from Emma, the daughter who she and Martin gave up for adoption. While Joan grapples with the pain and regret of giving up her baby long ago, she must confront her present as the cracks in her marriage become impossible to ignore and simmering tension with Carmel boils over.

Meanwhile, Carmel and Emma struggle to come to terms with the perceived sins of their mother, and to imagine a future for their family before it is too late. Spanning the nineties and the sixties, with Dublin as its backdrop, The Making of Her is the tender and heartbreaking story of marriage, motherhood, a culture that would not allow a woman to find true happiness—and her journey to finally claim it.