I had hope that with a subject that was much discussed in the last decade that the author would have done more with this novel. The abuse wasn't limited to a single institution - it was endemic, as is clear in how outsiders even discussed Magdalen Girls. But here the author chose to blame the harsh treatment on a single mother superior with mental health issues? Odd choice.

I was disappointed to find that the author used a pseudonym (it isn't a well kept secret, the copyright page has the fellows name), the ambiguity of initials, and a gender neutral biographical note made it seem plausible that a woman had been the author but that wasn't the case. And so I wonder why this was done, and why the author felt that he was the one that should present the story of these fictional woman, inspired by very true tales of misery. Characterization was good, but motivation is made murky by the use of the pseudonym.

I also found it very bizarre that Kensington included a note about using the text for academic purposes on the copyright page, which makes me wonder, was this text created as a teaching tool? This is a work of fiction, why not use primary and secondary sources based on fact to teach about this period of history?

Recently I discovered that my family has ancestry in Dublin Ireland and this book came to my mind. Strange how the mind works. I requested, “The Magdalen Girls” to review some time ago and to be honest, I’m not sure why I chose it because it wasn’t a subject, I was ready-mentally-to look in-depth. The Catholic Church has an extremely dark history and I don’t believe their theology/doctrine is entirely in line with the Holy Bible.

The story introduces three young girls, Teagan, Nora and Lea. Leading up to the moment Teagan and Nora were cast out of their homes and into the “care” of The Sister of the Holy Redemption. The cruelty of Mother Ann and the Nuns who carries out her orders is a clear reflection of the abuse, neglect, death, exploitation and forced, cruel hard labor that are not the teachings of Christ. These young girls’ situation there and of the others, lay heavily on my mind.

There are two priest that are front and center to Teagan’s down fall. Father Mark and Father Matthew. In short, I found Father Matthew not living up to his higher responsibility that God has commanded and instead he seceded the position to a mostly matriarchal attitude that was counterproductive to Christian life. His inability to counsel Father Mark and do right by the situation at hand really reflects my opinion above. They laid full responsibility of Mark’s sin on Teagan. That is not Christ like.

My main focus of this review is Tegan’s downfall because of the bold example the author shows of how the Priests influence its congregation and community. My focus on Teagan’s story- in no way- diminishes the others girls experience in that toxic environment.

I would have liked to have read a better build-up of the girl’s life before they entered, The Sister of the Holy Redemption. Other than that, it was a powerful premise, though a sad one.

Was there redemption in the story for the girls? That is for you to find out by reading the story.

I rated this book three stars and obtained a galley copy from the publishers through NetGalley.

Stephanie Hopkins

Sorry, this one wasn't really for me. I tried this a couple times and couldn't get into it. I still like Kensington novels! though Thanks for the ARC anyway.

Back in the late 1890's until just recently, Ireland employed an idea called The Magdalen Laundries, which were essentially homes for unwed mothers, or what they call 'fallen women'. This book tells the story about 4 of these girls, their thoughts, desires, and experiences while 'working' and living in these facilities.

There is no sugarcoating in this book. The dank, deplorable conditions that these girls had to live in are told in unsparing detail, and were so realistic that I could feel their angst and despair. This book opened my eyes to a time in history that I was unaware of.

“Welcome to your new home – for as long as is necessary to expiate your sins.”


V.S. Alexander’s novel The Magdalen Girls is set in 1962 Dublin, Ireland. The Sisters of the Holy Redemption, a convent of the Catholic Church, is a place for “fallen” women to have a chance for redemption from their sins through hard labor, reflection, and prayer. The lives of a Magdalen was difficult. Not only did they have to endure long hours working in the stifling laundries, but they had little chance of returning to the rest of society, and even if they did, their reputation would be ruined.

The Magdalen Girls follows the lives of three girls: Teagan Tiernan, whose innocent flirtations invoked lustful longings of a priest; Nora Craven, who was accused of being too “loose” with her boyfriend; and Lea, a reclusive and mysterious girl who was sent to the Sisters when she could no longer be cared for. They find solace in each other and together seek to find a way to escape their prison.

These girls had to endure so much, all in the name of God and redemption of their souls. It was heartbreaking to read about these girls (Teagan and Nora) being dragged away in the middle of the night to the convent by parents who assumed the worst in them, at the tender, and at the tender, young age of sixteen years old. Every bit of hope was cruelly torn away from them, and their lives became a series of devastation after devastation. Even one girl’s chance of happiness at the end came at a heavy cost.

This book was a terrible reminder of how far women have come in the last 55 years, as well as how the how the impact of the Catholic Church has changed. These girls, though not all were wrongly accused, were ostracized by society, made to work hard labor, and had their reputations ruined in the name of redeeming their sinful souls in the eyes of God. It’s hard to imagine something like this occurring today.

*I received a copy of this eBook from NetGalley and Kensington Books in exchange for an honest review.*

Wow - well first off, I didn't know what I was getting into when I picked this up. It was definitely judging a book by it's cover - because I really love it. But the subject matter was hard for me to read. It was a part of history that I didn't know existed - at least in this fashion. I knew about women being locked in insane asylums when they didn't fall in line with the societal norms but I didn't know the religious side of it.

Alexander did a good job at trying to not demonize the Catholic church while still showing the indignities that occurred.

It was a book that left me angry and frustrated for the characters - for the fact that there was no way for their voice to be heard - for the lack of justice and mercy. It went against the grain of innocent until proven guilty and just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I think Teagan was the one who gave me the most grief. She was put in simply because a priest (who really had no business joining the clergy) was having "impure thoughts" about her. And just like that her parents signed her over to the custody of the nuns with no sign of ever taking her back. So many times she tried to tell the truth, explain what happened and no one would listen to her simply because she was fallen.

Being a Christian myself the whole scenario left me feeling terrible. In no way did the actions reflect the teachings of Christ - but as I earlier stated, Alexander wrote this in such a way that while the local leaders we dealt with drove me crazy she didn't condemn the Church as a whole.

Overall, if you want to find out more about a little known bit of history go for it.

I was given a galley copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a detailed horrifying historical account told in novel form of the manner in which certain Irish young women had no rights and were essentially held prisoner by the Catholic Church. It's not a pretty story but it was certainly compelling!

What a gripping account of life in Ireland during the 60s - talk about historical fiction at its best!

This story is based on true events.
The story is Raw, hard hitting, poient, Powerful and heartbreaking.

After watching the film and reading the story I felt that the book didn't quiet capture the horrific nature these young women faced.
Some young girls were forced into the Laundries because they was pregnant out of wedlock. They was abused, tortured and worked very hard. Once they had their babies they was taken away. Never to be seen again.

This did not mean these young girls got out. Nope they still had to endure the pain, torture, humiliation and abuse even though some families promised they would come back.
There was No escape!!

The Magdalene girls is a book set in Ireland 1962.

The story is about two very different young women who end up being sent to the Magdalene Laundries by their families. Teagan is sent there because the new young priest shows an interest in her which is deemed as her fault and a Sin!
Nora was taken there because her family caught her having an encounter with her boyfriend in their house also a Sin.

The Laundries are run by extremely strict and very cruel Nuns of the Catholic Church.
The young women are stripped of their identity, their personalities, their lives they are forced to work and then eat then sleep and pray.
 The Nuns had very strange views on what the believed Love was.
They believed that by "teaching" them a lesson it was showing the girls love!

Nora and Teagan soon realise they have become prisoners of the Nuns and soon accept that the only way to survive the torture is to work. However the girls do seem to get themselves in a fair amount of trouble.

One scene in the book sticks in my mind where the 3 girls are made to lay on a cross to be punished. They must not move, eat or drink. Until they are told.
This is just a glimpse into the horrific torture these women face.

I enjoyed reading the book, however I wish we had learnt a little more about the history behind the Magdalene Laundries.
It did make me angry as the girls didn't deserve to be in there.
The way the Sisters treated them was awfull it was almost like they got pleasure from it. Cruel and nasty!
But it also made me very sad and emotional to think this is based on a true story and this did really happen to many, many women.

Overall I would recommend reading this book as it was very powerful and opened my eyes to some of the horrific stories that the girls face in these Laundries.

This book is absolutely brilliant. Parts of it are based on true events or known situations which only makes the circumstances and treatment of the girls more tragic. Even without the tidbit of truth I believe Alexander would make anyone care about her characters.
I have always been intrigued by the way we, as humans in history and today, decide a person is unsuitable, mentally unstable or a harm to themselves or others. While there are many obvious cases in which intervention is needed ; I believe there are likely twice as many cases where prejudice, personal preference or other circumstances resulted in the incarceration of someone unjustly.
The problem with a lack of true scientific or compelling evidence (ie: video) is that suddenly the situation and what happened becomes subjective. The Magdalen Girls does an excellent job of showing how one person of power can ruin someone. I couldn't help but imagine, what if that someone was me? It's chilling.

This is an excellent book club choice. Lots of great content and moments that should spark conversation and possibly some good debates. For those who tend to shy away from religious books or women's literature let me assure you that this novel is really about injustice and how easy it is for things to get out of control. The means in which we are told the story are actually quite irrelevant at the end of the day. I didn't feel hindered at all by the religion (and I'm not Catholic or Christian so sometimes religion ruins things for me). This book is just written so well that I knew while reading it that this wasn't about priests, nuns or convents; instead it's about how unfair life can be. And a reminder that we all may be one misstep away from a very bad day that changes the course of our lives; because keep in mind this set-up is based on truth.

I highly recommend this book and am so grateful to have received an eARC copy. I liked it so much that it will be added to my list of eBooks that need to be on my print shelf.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review. Don't believe me? Check out the other books I've had eARCs for that I gave poor reviews to. I always give my opinion whether good, bad or neutral. ;)

Want to read more of my reviews? Check out my new reading blog at: http://epicstitching.blogspot.ca/search/label/reading

This was a very well written novel.It is evident that a great deal of research was done. I had trouble reading parts of the book not because of the writing but because of the subject matter. The fact that convents like The Sisters of the Holy Redemption actually existed needs to be written and needs to read by all. .

Stevie‘s review of The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander
Historical Fiction published by Kensington 27 Dec 16

I suspect the history of the Magdalen Laundries is better known on this side of the Atlantic than in the US; although similar institutions (sometimes using the same nomenclature) did exist over there, the majority were located in Ireland, and that is where this story is set. Originally established with the aim of reforming prostitutes, by the mid-twentieth century the laundries had become a dumping ground for unmarried mothers-to-be, unruly teenagers, and other young women who attempted to defy society’s conventions or their families’ rules on behaviour. Three such girls are Teagan, Nora, and Lea.

Teagan comes from an outwardly respectable middle-class family, although their public façade hides the reality of her alcoholic father and weak, abused mother. Teagan has a boyfriend, but he comes from a Protestant family in contrast to Teagan’s own Catholic upbringing. At a party to welcome the new priest, Teagan finds herself alone with the young man; while she flirts a little, and imagines what would happen were he not a priest, nothing improper happens. Teagan’s father, however, becomes suspicious, and when the new priest tells his mentor that he felt tempted by Teagan, the older men conspire to send Teagan away to a Magdalen Laundry.

While Teagan is still unaware of her planned fate, over on the other side of Dublin in a much less affluent area, Nora is planning to run away to London with her boyfriend. Her plans fall through when he confesses to having met someone else, and Nora’s attempts to win him back are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of her father. Scandalised by her behaviour, he also decides to send her away – and she arrives at the Laundry on the same night as Teagan.

At their new home, the girls are given new names and new clothes, as well as having their hair shorn off and told of the punishments in store for them should they disobey the nuns who will oversee their every movement. Initially put to work sorting and laundering clothes, Teagan, in particular, is promised more prestigious work should she manage to prove herself to the sisters. One girl who has done so is Lea, who has been an inmate so long that she has almost forgotten her name. She becomes the third member of the group of friends; while she has no desire to leave the Laundry, she is happy to help Teagan and Nora with their plans to return to Dublin.

This is, understandably, quite a bleak book, which includes in the girls’ stories a number of examples of well-known scandals from real life Laundries. While we meet a number of different nuns, only the mother superior has any real backstory – lending a degree of sympathetic portrayal to an otherwise unsympathetic character – and we never really find out to what extent the events of the book truly change her attitude to her charges as a while. My other niggle with the book was that while some details felt spot-on, based on knowledge gleaned from my Irish friends, other pieces of description felt out of place in 1960s Ireland: I don’t think candied beets are the same thing as pickled beetroot; while tinned sweetcorn (we don’t call it corn on this side of the Atlantic!) was available in the UK (and presumably Ireland) in 1960, I can’t see it being an institutional food so early when soggy carrots were more readily available; I don’t remember any of my Irish friends mentioning having a post box at the edge of their garden for mail to be delivered into, rather than a letterbox in the main door.

All in all a disappointingly average book, when I was expecting something a little more ground-breaking.

Grade: C

3.5 stars

The subject matter of this book is so tragic and I've wanted to learn more about it for awhile. I enjoyed The Magdalen Girls, but it just seemed like it never quite lived up to its potential. The character development could have been stronger and the storyline needed more depth. I'm left feeling as if there's more of Teagan and Nora's story to be told.

I hadn't heard much about the "Magdalene Laundries" before reading, and certainly didn't know there were so many... so this book was eye opening. Simply written and not too long, easy to burn through but rather bleak, understandably. I admire the author for being realistic. It's clear from reading the story that it isn't likely that everyone will get a happy ending, or at least not what they envision.

Sixteen year old Teagan has found herself imprisoned at a Magdalen Laundry through no fault of her own. Sweet and pretty, her innocent conversation with a handsome young priest left him with impure thoughts about her. Despite the fact that she's actually done nothing wrong and in fact nothing impudent happened between the two, she is cast out from her home and sent away. The Laundry is like a prison, a perfect place to crush the spirit of young women. Her life now consists of sleep, terrible food, back breaking work, and prayer. Any insolence among the girls is punished. Her only comforts are Nora, a girl who arrived not long after her, and Lea, a strange young woman who is trusted by the nuns who run the place. Nora is a feisty young lady who begins plotting an escape as soon as she arrives. Getting out isn't the only problem. The girls have no one to turn to if they do escape, having been betrayed by those closest to them. Is it even possible, or will they end up just as broken as the women that have been living there for years?

I was given an ARC from Net Galley and Kensington Books, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

The Magdalen Girls taught me a history lesson. I had no idea laundries existed to supposedly reform unsavoury women. To realize these establishments existed in 1962 was startling. Religious beliefs continue to play a detrimental part in our lives . Nora and Teagan were just two of the many young women whose teenage years were ruined because of certain beliefs. To become institutionalized is a scary but real concept. The book was repetitive and predictable in many places. Good versus evil was also predominant in this book. This book was educational in that it depicted true events that occurred not only in Dublin but other countries. The Magdalen Girls showed how Catholic nuns thought they were doing God's work but making women do hard labor in a sterile environment in the hope of reforming them for in most cases minor indiscretions.

The Magdalen laundries are places of refuge and reform for women in Dublin. One of these can be found in 1962 in the Sisters of the Holy Redemption convent. Young women and girls can be placed here because of criminal activities or actions that are deemed immoral. Some girls, however, find themselves placed here just because of rumors, their good looks, or the whim of a parent. Teagan Tiernan and Nora Craven were two of these young girls. Teagan gets accused of immoral actions by a priest who can’t control his lustful thoughts. Nora was put here by her parents who were looking for a reason to get rid of her. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, has dark secrets of her own that she is dealing with. She runs the laundry like a tyrant and keeps the women in a constant state of dread and utter despair. Of course, she feels like she is doing this in love. No one escapes, but Nora and Teagan give it a try anyway. How will they possibly get out of this prison?

I had to keep reminding myself while reading this book that it is set in 1962. Really??? How on earth was this allowed to go on just 50 years ago? While the idea of having a place to reform or to recover after bad life choices is a good thing, the reality was perverted by human behavior disguised by religion. Also, the fact that someone loses all their human rights simply because a parent signs them over to a convent is unthinkable.

I found myself frustrated and angry while reading this book. It was an eye-opening look into something that did occur. How many women found themselves living their lives like this? What happened to these girls? Did they get out and have the opportunity for a real life? This was a thought-provoking book and I am glad I read it. I feel it was good to read about a portion of recent history that I had never heard of. If historical fiction is a genre you enjoy, definitely pick this one up. Four out of Five stars.

I chose to read this book, because I had previously watched the movie "The Magdalene Sisters" and thought it was an interesting topic. The plots were very similar, but I enjoyed it.

All of the characters in this novel are incredibly believable and human. There wasn't a time while reading that I felt the characterization was lacking. In particular, I was very intrigued by Sister Anne and her backstory.

This story is full of atrocities, and sometimes hard to fathom. But the reality is that things like this did happen and within the last number of years. When Teagan explains how she feels like a prisoner in her own freedom, it really shows the psychological damage to the Magdalens as well as the physical damage.

Review: The Magdalen Girls
On January 2, 2017 by Dawn

The Magdalen Girls

The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you haven’t heard the term “Magdalen Laundry”, the first thing you should probably do is have a look at Wikipedia here. It’s understandably a touchy subject, involving morality, feminism, the Catholic Church and it’s power, and this isn’t the place to explain it.

The basic plot of the novel is that of three young ladies sent to live in the Magdalen Asylum in the early 60’s, and their plotting to escape.

The strength of the novel is in the writing itself. Alexander spins the plot into a story that lives and breathes. You worry about these girls. You fear. You want to yell at them not to be stupid. You care. You feel the settings, the grim cold wet of a rainy December in England, the darkness of a dark, windowless room, the feel of rough wool.

Lovers of historical fiction should definitely pick this one up, and it should be short-listed for feminist-friendly reading groups. I’d happily see this added to High School reading lists as well, as a reminder of what women’s equality movement is (and was) fighting against.

View all my reviews

Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are fallen women unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.
Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.

This novel is a softer version than others I have read - still worth a read.