Apart from the Crowd - Softcover

No denying McPartlin has a way with words...[she] has a good ear for everyday speech. --Sunday Tribune, November 05, 2006

Anna McPartlin beautifully captures each character, revealing their past and present lives while weaving their stories together intricately and keeping you truly absorbed from start to finish. It so impressed me that I will be reading it again. --Irish Mail on Sunday, November 19, 2006

Apart From the Crowd is a delightful roller-coaster ride of emotion and a surprisingly light and enjoyable read, given its subject matter. --Sunday Independent, April 01, 2004

In a little Irish town like Kenmare, there's no need to worry whether people will discover your secrets. They already have.

For Mary, that means being remembered for her tragic losses, even if she'd rather get on with her life. For her cousin Ivan, as close as a brother, the gossip is all about how his wife took the kids and ran off with her new lover. For Mary's friend Penny, it's an old romance that didn't work out quite right, and a current affair with a bottle of vodka.

Then Sam Sullivan rents the cottage next door to Mary, and within hours the whole town is talking about the film-star-handsome American. When Sam hurts his back while helping his new neighbor and spends the next week confined to a mattress on her floor, gossip runs rampant. But neither Kenmare nor Mary know about the secrets Sam is so successfully hiding....

For Mary's circle of friends, Sam's arrival marks more than one change. And Mary whose unlucky history has kept her apart from the crowd much of her life has finally found a man with whom she feels she might truly connect. But so long as both are captive to memories they dare not reveal, the past is a barrier that will keep them forever alone.

In this powerful novel, Anna McPartlin perfectly captures the drama, the emotion, and the laughter of a small Irish community, for those who fit in and those who don't. Apart from the Crowd mixes wit and insight to create an engrossing tale that will keep you reading to the very last page.