Dual timeline novel set around the world
Novel set in BOSTON and DUBLIN
5th January 2026
The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent, novel set in Boston and Dublin.
Ruby Cooper is growing up at the tailend of the 20th Century with her older sister, Erin, and their parents. Their father is a fairly devout pastor (with a financial advice bureau as his other job). They go to church, the girls are to remain pure until marriage and life ticks along until Erin starts dating Milo, a gentle soul, the two are very close.
Ruby has always seen herself as the inferior sister, she simply cannot measure up to Erin’s beauty, talent and competency and one day, she decides on an irrevocable course of action, which reverberates across family and friends and generations into present day.
This is a story where family members are complicit in a cover-up but the weight of knowledge and culpability weigh heavily on the individuals.The family fractures, with their father and Erin remaining in Boston and Mother fleeing to her family home in Dublin, with Ruby in tow. Ruby turns to alcohol and has to join AA to have any chance of a future. She stumbles through life and there is always hope that somehow there will be redemption. She recklessly has sex with innumerable partners whilst utterly intoxicated, she produces a daughter, Lucy, but is unsure who the father is. Lucy herself faces a life changing issue and Erin projects a great deal of her own personality on to her daughter, with inevitable devastating consequences.
The story charts a chaotic and chronic battle with alcoholism, and keeps the hope alive that one of the 
characters involved at the heart of the story has the strength of will – the moral compass – to do the right thing.
It is hard to review this novel without giving too much away. I found it propulsive, gripping and immersive and the dark psychological aspects came through well.
There are potential trigger events that makes this unsuitable for some readers.
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