Ladies Midnight Swimming Club 🌚🩱
- The_Secret_Bookreview
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
By Faith Hogan.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Mostly she loved the fact that it made her feel alive in a way that nothing else could.”
Set along the windswept Irish coast, The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club is a tender and heartfelt story about loss, healing, and the quiet power of friendship.
Faith Hogan brings together three women at very different stages of life, each carrying pain and uncertainty, and creates something truly beautiful from their shared strength.
Elizabeth is newly widowed and facing a future she never expected. Her marriage to Eric had grown cold long before his sudden death, but it is the secrets he left behind that shake her most. When she discovers he had been gambling and left her thousands of pounds in debt, Elizabeth is left scrambling to save her home and the GP surgery attached to it.
Jo, a lifelong resident of Ballycove, may appear frail but she is sharp, kind, and the very soul of the village. She steps in to help Elizabeth with a quiet suggestion. Her daughter Lucy is a doctor who is also in need of a change.
Lucy has recently separated from her husband, who has left for Australia, and is struggling to keep going. Burnt out from long hours in a busy hospital and needing time to heal, she arrives in Ballycove with her teenage son Niall, hoping to find calm by the sea.
Together, the three women begin to meet by the water. In the stillness of the night, they form the Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club, braving the icy Irish Sea to find comfort, clarity, and connection. Their swims become a form of therapy, where the cold washes away the noise of the day and allows them to simply be. What begins as a quiet escape turns into something life-changing.
The story is told over five months, from April to August, with chapters from the perspectives of Elizabeth, Jo, Lucy, Dan (a newcomer renting a cottage in the village), and Niall. Though multiple points of view can sometimes distract, here they enrich the story, offering insight and intimacy that would be lost without them.
Hogan writes with warmth and compassion, gently exploring themes of grief, forgiveness, loneliness, and hope. Each character is well drawn and relatable. Elizabeth is reserved and vulnerable, Jo wise and quietly brave, Lucy strong yet frayed at the edges. Even the secondary characters feel fully formed, adding charm and depth to this close-knit community.
This is a story that celebrates the strength of women, the bonds of friendship, and the healing rhythm of the sea. It does touch on emotional subjects and there are moments that may bring tears, but there is also laughter, comfort, and the feeling that things will, in time, be all right.
The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club is a reminder that even in our most difficult seasons, there is connection, courage, and the chance to begin again.
