Assembling Ailish

Sharon Guard

Mar 2026 · Bolinda · Narrated by Shelley Atkinson

Audiobook

6 hr 44 min

Unabridged

Eligible

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About this audiobook

Ailish McCarthy is not doing well. Outwardly successful – career, beautiful home, wealthy husband, two daughters reared and on the cusp of their own lives – inwardly she is crumbling. Her relationship with her mother was complicated and difficult, the grief following her death unnaturally prolonged. As much as she wants to move forward, Ailish is caught in a spiral with her ghosts. In order to escape them, she must resolve her past. Revisit it. Construct again, from memory, the family and friends who shaped her, the boy she could not forget, the changing Ireland which provided the backdrop for their lives. Under the guidance of her therapist, Ailish begins the process of examining her previous selves: anxious child, traumatised teenager, adult woman riven with a never-to-be-shared secret. From these uniquely broken shards, can she assemble a present self, a whole self, one she can live with?

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About the author

Sharon Guard is an Irish author who holds an MA in Creative writing from UL. Her work has appeared in New Irish Writing, SWERVE magazine, The Ogham Stone and the Washing Windows anthologies. She won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award 2020 and has had short fiction and poetry listed for other competitions and publications. Assembling Ailish (2026) is her acclaimed debut novel.

Shelley is an actress, originally from Ireland. She has been based in the UK since graduating from Arts Educational London Schools in 1997 and has worked in all areas of the business, predominantly in theatre, in both lead and character roles. Shelley is also an experienced voiceover artist and has recently started narrating audiobooks, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016 winner, The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney.

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