The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy

 

The setting is Lough Glass in Ireland and it's the early 1950s. The story follows Mary Katherine McMahon's life as a child and the approximately ten years after her mother Helen disappears. It's thought her mother drowned but Mary (known as Kit) worried her mother killed herself.  She had a note from her mother but burned it without reading as if it was a suicide note she couldn't have a church burial.

Kit misses her mother very much and leans on friends and distant family to help her. She gets into a pen pal relationship with a woman named Lena Gray who claims to have known her mother.  There is certainly a surprise lurking for Kit in that relationship!

If you want to submerge yourself into 1950s Irish culture this will be a good book for you. It's dated in references but I liked it. The themes are loss and love.  I liked the comparison of English life vs Irish life from Kit's perspective.

 This is another book I am clearing from the shelves in my mission to read more books from the stacks at home.  It's already in the mail to a friend who may enjoy it!

Sharing with Joy's Book Blog for British Isles Friday and Marg at The Intrepid Reader for the 2022 Historical Fiction challenge.