If you are looking for a delightful, heartwarming read, then Faith Hogan is your gal. Faith lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, four children and two very fussy cats, and she first came to our attention after winning the 2014 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair – an international competition for emerging writers.  Since then her love of reading and writing has been a gift to us all and her contemporary fiction novels have achieved top ten bestseller status across the US, UK, Australia and Canada. 

In The Gin Sisters' Promise three sisters, a family home steeped in memories and decades of secrets and hurt are bound together in this gorgeous family drama set in coastal Ireland. The Guest House by The Sea is escapist, lovely and life affirming, and readers will fall in love with this seaside Irish guest house and the people who stay there. Her last outing The Bookshop Ladies (which is now out in paperback) was shortlisted for An Post Book Award: a charming Irish bookshop provides the backdrop where friendships are formed and secrets are revealed in this warm-hearted tale.

And this month we share with you Faith's latest book and we think her best one yet. Awarded a LoveReading Star Book, The Women at Ocean's End is a beautifully compelling and compassionate story of three women from three generations exploring life together in the most wonderful of locations. A lovely, comforting and joyous read, Faith writes with her trademark empathetic pen, and it feels as though she knows these women intimately, cares about them, and in her writing, passes those feelings onto the reader. The location is stunning, an island of two villages and Ocean’s End sitting between them, hence the theme for Faith's Guest Editorship of LoveReading this June. Meaningful and captivating, The Women at Ocean’s End beats with a heartfelt poignant joy, and comes highly recommended by us.

Now, over to Faith.

Island Books to Fall in Love With by Faith Hogan

What is it about islands that just set a writers imagination on fire? I mean seriously, cast your memory across any genre and I’ll bet you can name out at least three really good island based reads. When I sat down to think of what I might include in my editor's spot for LoveReading – Island Books were the first that sprang into my mind.

Maybe it has something to do with my 2025 summer read – The Women at Ocean’s End being set on an island? Perhaps…

The fact is, that once I began to think about island books, well, rather than figure out what I should share, it became more a question of what I had to leave out. There are so many brilliant books, across genres, old and new.

Is there a greater romance than the enemies-to-lovers castaway apparently without hope of rescue? And what about the idea that it is just you – you and all those eerie shadows and sounds and no way of escaping a terror that you can’t quite name, but you’re absolutely certain is going to reveal itself as soon as the lights go out.

From a very young age, as a reader I was immersed in stories that took me a million miles away from reality. Aren’t all budding writers day dreamers to start? I can’t tell you how many times the Famous Five ended up having to solve a mystery on Kirren Island, but I’m sure it was quite a few. Then there was the Swiss Family Robinson who ignited in each of us a deep desire to live in tree houses and explore desert islands. Of course, in my teenage years, I fell down the rabbit hole of And Then There Were None and so started a love affair with the island mystery read. More recently books like the brilliant The Guest List by Lucy Foley and the excellent Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney continue the tradition with style.

Over the years, so many books have fallen into my hands with island living at their centre; maybe it was inevitable that one day I would tackle a story set away from mainland life.

I’m very lucky to live in the west of Ireland – just off our coastline there are over forty islands dotted in Clew Bay. The nearest and largest island near me is Achill Island, it’s also the inspiration for The Women At Ocean’s End. Achill, is probably best known around the world as the location for the Academy Awards nominated movie, The Banshees of Inisheerin. Watching the movie it’s hard not to be struck anew by the rugged beauty of the place.

Keem Bay and Achill Island - Photo credit: Sean Hogan

For LoveReading – I’m not going to talk about books that make you want to keep the lights on or anything that’s going to make you brood! Rather, I want to tell you about fabulous reads to pack into your holiday bag, books that will uplift you and grip you in equal measure – they may make you cry, but also, crucially, they will transport you to a place that you won’t want to leave. These are uplifting titles at their best…

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Juliet Ashton is stuck in a rut. During the war, writing as Lizzie Bickerstaff, she had purpose; her weekly newspaper column lifted spirits and entertained when people needed it most. Now, she is suffering writers block in her professional life and in her personal life she feels as if she’s not ready to step off the precipice into the future being held out before her.

Then, she receives a letter, from a man called Dawsey Adams and finds herself drawn into a world that offers friendship and inspiration. She sets off on a trip to Guernsey where she finds a people scarred by war, hiding secrets in plain sight and offering her the chance of not just love, but also healing and deep connection. 

This is a love story, but it also so much more. It is a story of belonging and facing up to the past in order to grasp the best of life in the present. It is a book I cried and laughed over and at the end, on the very last page, I wanted to start reading it again.

The Island by Victoria Hislop

I came to this wonderful book late in the day – the idea of reading a book about an island set aside for leprosy sufferers at a time when there was no cure available, just didn’t seem like the sort of uplifting book I enjoy. 

How wrong can you be? Very, it turns out. 

Alexis Fielding is eager to learn about her mother’s family, when she arrives in Greece, she becomes fascinated with a connection to the island of Spinalonga, the former leprosy colony. The books goes from present to past, it details the lives of Elena and her daughters. The past is shrouded in secrets and lies, jealousy and tragedy but above all, it is a story of love and kindness and the courageousness of spirit is truly heartening. It is, I have to say, an unlikely beach read, there were times when it undid me, emotionally – pain and separation slid from the page in abundance as I read some sections. However, I was absolutely rooting for several of the main characters and the author did not let me down. Ultimately, there is hope and of course, the fact that we’re reading it from present to past, means we know that somehow things panned out and they do… of course, you’ll have to read it to find out how exactly!

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

For me, Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the Nantucket beach read. For a summer, very many years ago I spent some time in this part of the world and her books instantly transport me to the grey-blue clapboards and shingles, the seemingly unending choices of deserted beaches and that particular society that is east coast, US wealthy vacationing vibe. Swan Song is in part mystery, we dive into the lives of the Richardsons, impossibly rich and affluent – the couple who within a very short period of time have established themselves at the centre of the Nantucket social set. When their multi-million dollar summer home is burned down and their ‘trusty’ assistant disappears we are left in the familiar and capable hands of the local police chief; Ed Kampanesh who is on the threshold of retirement, if he can just make it through the next few days. This is a book filled with trademark characters, understated luxury and sometimes in your face opulence, small town gossip and a good old twist or two along the way. If you don’t have a holiday booked, you can ask for nothing better than to live vicariously for three hundred odd pages through the lens of Elin Hildebrand’s story telling.

Summer Island by Kristin Hannah

So, we all know Kristin Hannah is an incredible writer – if you’ve read The Four Winds, you’ll know she has the ability to take you apart and put you back together several times over the course of a few hundred pages. Her books are incomparable and they are only getting more amazing as she goes. Her latest offering, The Women is a compelling read. However, I’m not sure they are what you’d call a beach read, these are books which will submerge you, keeping the tissues handy at all times is advisable.

Summer Island, on the other hand, an earlier book is a perfect beach read. (And, handily enough, it’s set on an island too!) It’s the story of a mother-daughter relationship, pulled asunder years earlier and how, against all the odds, that relationship might be mended and with it, the characters and their lives also. This is a great big HEA from Hannah, the writing is terrific, the setting, Summer Island, is amazing – you’ll want to put anchor down here until the very last page.

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

How could I talk about Island books and not mention this classic? To be perfectly honest, there are three other books that deserve to be on this list also, but then, just as I was narrowing my list, I thought of Bali – the toothless old man, the great learning that all is well, you just need to sit and smile…

This is a book that most women my age devoured when it first hit the shelves and yet, it remains (maybe in some part thanks to the movie) still present in my mind when I think of books I’ve enjoyed. Gilbert brings us on an emotional safari, taking in not just Bali, Italy and India, but in the company of a plucky narrator who despite being in search of herself, is very much a heroine for our age. The prose is beautiful, the dialogue smart and the settings…. Even if you never leave your armchair, this is a book to wash away those cares and worries between two delicious covers.

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Thank you Faith for joining us as our Guest Editor for June and sharing some fabulous books to enjoy at the start of the summer season. Thanks also to Sean Hogan for sharing the stunning photos of Keem Bay and Achill Island. We've not only included Faith's recommendations below but we've also featured some recent Hogans for you to enjoy. 

You can find out more about Faith at faithhogan.com and you can also follow her social media accounts on Facebook, X and Instagram.