Hannah, May and Eleanor are sisters. Their early life in Dublin, with their middle-class parents, has prepared them for a comfortable future of marriage, children and servants. Further north, Mary and Cecilia are also sisters. They are struggling to make a living in the linen mills of Belfast, amid rising political tension.

The lives of all the sisters are destined to unfold in ways that none of them could have imagined. Another Kind of Life is the intricately crafted tale of how their lives entwine, against the backdrop of the rapidly changing Ireland of the late nineteenth century.

In her eagerly awaited new novel, Catherine Dunne returns to the themes of family ties, love and loyalty which she has delineated so finely in her earlier work. But this time, she opens out her canvas to tell us a much wider story. Perceptive, absorbing and beautifully told, Another Kind of Life is an unforgettable portrait of a family, and of Ireland, which will stay with the reader long after the last page.