Shelia O’Flanagan is one of my favourite novelists so having loved Sheila’s ‘My Mother’s Secret’ I am delighted to help celebrate her 20th novel by bringing you a guest post from Sheila about the inspiration behind the story.

Inspiration for My Mother’s Secret

As my regular readers already know, I’m very interested in families and the dynamics of family relationships. ‘My Mother’s Secret’ deals with how well we think we know the people close to us. Children especially tend not to think of their parents’ lives before they were born and forget that they too were young and foolish.

I also wondered about how keeping a secret from those closest to you can influence your life and everyone else’s and what happens when eventually it comes to light.

I wanted to write about all of these things in an extended family setting and that’s how I came up with the idea of a surprise party where the surprise is bigger than anyone expected. And I loved delving into the past to show the impact that the decisions made had on family members over the years, and especially on the day of the party. My Mother’s Secret has more characters than most of my books and it was fun to have to many different voices and personalities to deal with – just like at a real party!

You can read my review of ‘My Mother’s Secret’  here:

My Mother’s Secret by Sheila O’Flanagan

You can follow the rest of the anniversary celebrations here:

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