The Leaving Coat — Margaret Mulvihill

New York, September 1895: newly-arrived emigrant Norah Doolan is searching for the wild and wayward sister, who left Ireland before her and suddenly stopped writing home. Sensible, conventional Norah is proud of her status as a fully trained and experienced nurse, but her ideas about “fallen women” are challenged as she moves from the squalid boarding house of a cynical landlady to the luxurious uptown household of Alfred Elster, a gentleman-photographer with an unmentionable disease and a philandering past. In Alfred Elster's eccentric household Norah Doolan comes to a more complicated understanding of manners and morals. Her onward quest for freedom and fulfilment takes her to a valley in Montana. There, among waifs and strays and “sporting girls”, she discovers a saving truth, that to live and love in a new world you must take your chance on the virtues of strangers.


Praise from acclaimed writers Mary Morrissy and Nicci Gerrard:

“An elegantly written and convincing love story, with a rich seam of wit and wisdom, and a cast of unforgettable characters: a novel to lighten the lives of its readers.”
Mary Morrissy

“The Leaving Coat is a big, bold, generous-hearted delight: a female Western, an intimate epic, a story of adventure, of loss, of self-discovery and of love.”
Nicci Gerrard



About the author:

Margaret Mulvihill is the author of three highly-praised novels, including St. Patrick's Daughter, which was serialised on BBC Radio 4. She has also written a biography of Charlotte Despard and many history books and articles. Born and educated in Ireland, she currently lives in London.