The Irish Adoption House

By: Michelle Vernal

Narrated by: Jennifer Fitzgerald

A completely heartbreaking and emotional fiction novel

Ireland, 1920. ‘Please. Don’t take her from me. Have some mercy, Sister. Just a moment longer.’ She clutched the bundle to her chest even tighter. But she couldn’t stop them. Hearing her baby’s cries echo in the hallway, she swore that one day they would be together again…

When the man she thought she’d marry suddenly disappears Maudie O’Connor is heartbroken. Then she finds out she’s pregnant. Refusing her pleas to keep the baby, her family send her to St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home in disgrace.

Lying in bed after a harrowing birth, it’s all worth it as she cradles her precious little girl. But the nuns tear the newborn from her grasp. Maudie’s only solace is that she is able to spend a few minutes a day feeding her. Then, one morning, her baby is nowhere to be seen.

Determined to find out what happened to her daughter, Maudie sneaks out after curfew, past the nuns guarding the record room. And when she finds her entry, her breath catches. Not only has her little girl been given up for adoption, she’s been sent several thousand miles away: to Savannah, Georgia, USA.

With her family disowning her, and not a penny to her name, how will Maudie even start the vast and lonely journey across the ocean? With no one to help her and so little information to go on, how can she hope to find the family who adopted her precious baby? And even if she does–will her little girl ever be given back to Maudie, where she truly belongs?

Have the tissues ready for this emotional historical novel set in Ireland, perfect for fans of Jean Grainger, Lisa Wingate and Diney Costeloe.

©2025 Michelle Vernal (P)2025 Bookouture, an imprint of Storyfire Ltd.

Great story

Well told, the narrator was excellent. Wishing it would’ve been a longer story but overall, it was a great listen.

Full of emotion, sadness and hope

This book is full of emotion, sorrow and hope. The tumultuous Irish revolution is a sad enough backdrop but the story of the poor pregnant and unwed Maudie is a tearjerker. The notorious Irish Catholic workhouses where unwed mothers were sent to have their babies and lose them to the system has now been exposed for what it was; a time in ireland that few are proud of and the graves of the mothers and babies lost in the system are testament to the cruelty and suffering from within their walls. This story did not end the way I have guessed and it avoided being sugar-coated, but still came to a good ending