It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan #BlogTour @katekerrigan @HoZ_Books

Patrick Murphy has charm to burn and a singing voice to die for. Many people will recognise his talent. Many women will love him. Rose, the sweetheart he leaves behind in Ireland, can never forget him and will move heaven and earth to find him again, long after he has married another woman. Ava, the heiress with no self-confidence except on the dance floor, falls under his spell. And tough Sheila Klein, orphaned by the Holocaust and hungry for success as a music manager, she will be ruthless in her determination to unlock his extraordinary star quality.

But in the end, Patrick Murphy's heart belongs to only one of them. Which one will it be?

Welcome to the Blog Tour for It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan, published in paperback by Head of Zeus on 13 July 2017


I have a real soft spot for Kate Kerrigan's writing, I've been a fan of hers for many years, ever since I read Recipes for a Perfect Marriage ten years ago. She also wrote the brilliant Ellis Island series. I reviewed her award-winning novel The Dress here on Random Things in June 2015.


It Was Only Ever You is another sweeping story from this very talented author. Set between 1950s County Mayo, Ireland and New York it is a story of hope, love, new beginnings, betrayal and discovery and features three well formed and realistic female lead characters. The three women; Rose, Ava and Sheila come from different backgrounds, different cultures and have different beliefs, yet they are intricately bound together by Patrick Murphy.

The story begins in Ireland as Patrick and Rose fall in love. Patrick comes from a hard-working, but poor family and courting the beautiful young Rose was never going to be looked at favourably by her family. She's the adopted daughter of the town Doctor, and her parents have great hopes for her. They certainly didn't envisage a life as a Murphy wife. It is their money and their influence that persuades Patrick, rather naively, to try his luck in America. He believes that Rose will follow him when he makes his fortune.

In America, Patrick's beautiful singing voice is discovered by upcoming music agent Sheila. She's a tough, straight-talking woman, ahead of her time. She does as she wants, upsets the wrong type of people and is determined to make Patrick a star. Not only has Patrick discovered his singing talent, but he's now also a husband and a father-to-be. His whirlwind romance with Ava, who dumped her solicitor fiance for Patrick has rather taken him by surprise.

Kate Kerrigan is so incredibly talented. Her female characters are so well developed, highly individual and despite Patrick's beauty, charm and success, each of these feisty females walk all over him. Patrick is a charmer, but also has a gullibility and naivety that exposes his weakness, this really is a female-led story, and I loved that.

It Was Only Ever You is set during the birth of rock n roll in the US, in the hot and sweaty ballrooms and dance clubs where the young people began to discover the frenetic dance and music that would shape our future. This is an incredibly well written, colourful and very moving story. I enjoyed every page.

KATE worked for many years as a magazine journalist and editor before her first book, Recipes for a Perfect Marriage was published in 2006. Recipes was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year, translated into 25 languages and optioned for film. Her next novel The Miracle of Grace, was also turned into a screenplay, but it was her next project, the Ellis Island Trilogy, featuring feisty heroine Ellie Hogan, that made her a New York Times bestseller. The Lost Garden, The Dress and her latest novel, It Was Only Ever You followed, all to critical acclaim and achieving bestseller status. Kate has a loyal following of readers in the U.K, Ireland, the U.S. and, increasingly, Australia. She is a ‘writers writer’ whose advocates include popular Irish writers Cecelia Ahern, Marian Keyes and Cathy Kelly.

Kate  lives and works in Killala, County Mayo on the Wild Atlantic Way. She lives in a house overlooking the sea with her artist husband, Niall Kerrigan, and their two young sons, Leo and Tom. Kate writes every day in a small cottage in her mother’s back garden, in the nearby town of Ballina. She documents her life in a weekly column for the Irish Mail, and on the Irish radio programme, Sunday Miscellany.

A writing evangelist, Kate also teaches and mentors at National University College Galway (NUIG).

Find out more at www.katekerrigan.ie

Find her Author page on Facebook

Follow her on Twitter @katekerrigan