NOVELS set in the rural idylls of Ireland and Devon contrast sharply with one set in the brash city of Houston, Texas, to provide us with three very different stories to feature in our regular look at new titles added to the Library shelves this month.

DVD Corner this time round features an ITV screened earlier this year, Girlfriends, which tells how three middle-aged women, friends since their teenage years, cope with a catalogue of family dramas.

The Girls Of Ennismore

by Patricia Falvey

IN 1900 IRELAND, two girls meet. They are from vastly, different worlds, they will be united in friendship through loves, losses and wars.

In the early years of the 20th century, Victoria Bell and Rosie Killeen are best friends, growing up in rural County Mayo, their friendship forged against the glorious backdrop of Ennismore House.

However, Victoria, born of the aristocracy, and Rosie, daughter of a local farmer, find that the disparity of their class and simmering social tensions in Ireland will push their friendship to the brink…

The Lie Of The Land

by Amanda Craig

QUENTIN AND LOTTIE BREDIN, like many modern couples, can’t afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, together they must downsize and move with their three children from London to a house in a remote part of Devon.

Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can’t understand why Lottie is so angry. Devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded. Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless , knows a different side to country life, as both a health visitor and a sheep farmer’s wife; and when the Bredins’ innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another.

By the end of the year, all their lives will be changed forever.

The Jealous Kind

by James Lee Burke

HOUSTON LIFE IS as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, juke boxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality. But beneath all this, a class war has begun and against this backdrop Aaron Holland Broussard discovers a world of violence he did not know existed.

When Aaron spots the beautiful and gifted Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob and one of the richest families in Texas.

As Aaron undergoes his harrowing evolution from boy to man, he discovers the inspirational and curative power of first love and how far he will go to protect it.

DVD Corner

Girlfriends

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WHEN LINDA IS SUDDENLY WIDOWED, she finds herself on her own for the first time in nearly 30 years. She turns to her old friends Gail and Sue for support. But it seems they may need her support in equal measure as each face up to the problems with being modern women of a certain age.

As the girlfriends come back together it’s clear that although their lives have changed over the years true friendship remains the same no matter how much time has passed.

Starring Phylis Logan, Miranda Richardson and Zoe Wanamaker.