Woman Who Stopped Making Sunday Dinner

For thirty-four years, Nuala Byrne has made Sunday dinner.Not occasionally. Not when she feels like it. Every Sunday.She has roasted the meat, peeled the potatoes, remembered who hates cabbage, found extra chairs, minded grandchildren, washed the dishes, kept track of birthdays, appointments, crises and everybody else's lives—and somewhere along the way, the thing she once chose with love became something everyone simply expected.Then one Sunday, Nuala puts down the serving spoon.She isn't leaving her husband. She isn't abandoning her family. And there has been no dramatic betrayal.She's simply not making Sunday dinner anymore.Her announcement sends a ripple through the sprawling Byrne family, where grown children have problems of their own, grandchildren still need feeding, old habits die hard, and everyone has a slightly different opinion about what Mam is supposed to do.For the first time in decades, Nuala has to discover who she is when she isn't standing nearest the kitchen.What begins as one small refusal becomes something much bigger: unfinished dreams, an old love of restoring furniture, friendships neglected, a marriage that must learn a new rhythm, and the uncomfortable realization that loving your family does not require carrying every piece of it.Warm, funny and deeply human, The Woman Who Stopped Making Sunday Dinner is a novel about marriage, motherhood, invisible labour, family expectations and the quiet courage it takes to choose your own life without walking away from the people you love.Because sometimes a family doesn't fall apart when one woman stops holding everything together.Sometimes everybody else finally discovers they have hands.