Irish author, Ann O'Loughlin, on the Amazon Bestsellers List

Even for a seasoned Irish journalist of 30 years, the success and subsequent inclusion on Amazon's Bestsellers List of O'Loughlin's debut novel, The Ballroom Café has come as more than a pleasant surprise to the author.
The news sees O'Loughlin join a list heavy with such airport fiction titans as EL James' Fifty Shades Of Grey and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. The Ballroom Café sits comfortably on a list that is topped by last year's literary sensation, Paula Hawkins' The Girl On The train.
Indeed, 18 of the top 20 positions on the list have been claimed by female authors, with Lee Child and David Nicholls the only male authors not roundly trounced out of contention by their more successful female counterparts.
The Ballroom Café has been a runaway success for O'Loughlin since its publication in the UK in May of this year. The novel concerns the story of two sisters torn apart by a dark family secret, living in separate wings of a crumbling, old Irish mansion. In telling its tale, the novel also explores the formerly-taboo subject of the Catholic Church's support of the forced adoption of babies, born to single Irish mothers, to wealthy American families.