Join us at the Library as Suzanne Leal and Mark Lamprell celebrate Mark’s latest release The Secret Wife, an irresistible story of fierce love, unconditional sacrifice and the transcendent power of pulling together.

In 1961, on the day that Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to rocket into outer space, Edith Devine moves into her brand-new suburban home — and meets her new neighbour, Frankie Heyman, and the two housewives become firm friends.

When Frankie’s domineering husband Ralph refuses to let her get a job, Edith hatches a plan to keep her friend’s household running while Frankie secretly goes out to work — and so Edith becomes Frankie’s secret wife. As Frankie builds a business empire, Edith runs both their homes: dusting, cleaning and cooking her way through the sexual revolution, the summer of love and the second wave of feminism. Throughout the 1960s, the world’s great events seem to be mirrored in the lives of two women — until the day in 1969 when the first humans step out onto the surface of the moon, and Frankie and Edith face a calamitous reckoning.

Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Teacher’s Secret, Border Street and The Deceptions, for which she won the Nib People’s Choice Prize and was shortlisted for the Davitt Awards. A regular presenter at literary, community and corporate events, Suzanne is the host of Thursday Book Club, a relaxed, friendly book club connecting readers online. Suzanne’s new novel will be published in 2023. www.suzanneleal.com

Mark Lamprell is a writer of novels and children’s books published in sixteen countries and twelve languages, including the novels The Full Ridiculous and A Lover’s Guide to Rome. He also works internationally as a writer and director in film, with movie credits including Babe Pig in the City, My Mother Frank, Goddess, A Few Less Men and Never Too Late.

Please see the Special Conditions of Entry for this event.