The Magdalenes is a story of redemption and reinvention.
Jude Madigan is a successful plaintiff's attorney who lived out a nightmare and spent years keeping it hidden. After being raped and impregnated by a Catholic priest when she was fourteen, she has spent years creating a new life, now driven to get justice for her clients.
She buries her past, and her emotions, under a solid veneer of ambition, but just as she's about to bring her biggest litigation case to trial, a strange assignment is forced upon her. Her law firm is given a huge commission to handle the estate of a recently deceased woman, with the catch that Jude, and no one else, must act as trustee. The terms require her to oversee the construction and finances of a Catholic halfway house for prostitutes.
Jude fights against this agreement since she turned her back on the church years ago and intends to keep it that way. Her boss insists she complies, not knowing about her past—or the pain of having her daughter taken from her arms minutes after the birth by a nun.
Damaged and patched together with anger and shame, Jude is reluctant, but becomes involved with a group of nuns and the prostitutes they're trying to help.
But the mystery remains as to why the stranger specified her, a litigation attorney, not an estate attorney, to handle the case. Though Jude struggles both personally and professionally, she discovers that what she feared most was what she needed to heal. Every belief is tested, and a lost dream is realized.
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Lawyer Jude Madigan is a character you can really get behind. She’s been through a lot, but it hasn’t stopped her from tackling life head on. She has a hard time, but tamps down her trauma. That is, until an unusual assignment is dropped in her lap. Specifically hers. Her boss says the client asked for her by name though Jude has never met the client before. She reluctantly takes it on and it brings her past rushing back to her.
During all of this she’s working on the biggest case of her career and she needs all of her concentration to pull off a win for her client, a young girl whose mother died in the accident that trapped her in the car under her mom. With her attention divided Jude is afraid of failing. And she’s more afraid of facing her past.
Well-written with great characters this is a tale of repressed trauma finally being addressed and making new friends along the way. Friends Jude would never have met if she’d continued along the path she’d chosen.
I read this book back in November 2024 for the Final Round of BBNYA and I’m only now sitting down to write the review. I didn’t have to revisit the book at all. That's how much it stuck with me. A powerful and compelling read you won’t want to miss.
Award winning author, Jeanne Skartsiaris, spins stories about life, digging into the soul her characters while they deal with real life challenges. Many readers identify with her stories, making them laugh as well as cry.
By day, Jeanne Skartsiaris works as a sonographer in an Ob/Gyn’s office. Working in sonography helped her get her BA degree in photography, with a goal to get a Masters in Medical Illustration. After graduation, she was offered a job as a medical/legal photographer for a plaintiff's law firm. Instead of completing the graduate program, she worked as a photographer and art director for seventeen years in the legal community.
She attended creative writing courses at Southern Methodist University. Her novel, "Dance Like You Mean It" is a coming-of-middle-age story. Also the author of YA novels, "Surviving Life"" and "Snow Globe". "The Magdalenes" speaks of shedding the past and reinventing oneself after a trauma.
"The Magdalenes" won first place in the San Antonio’s Writer’s Guild in 2019 and received a five-star review with Reader’s Favorites in 2019. It was long listed in the Page Turner awards 2023. "Dance Like You Mean It" was a finalist in the humor category in the 2017 Best Book Awards by American Book Fest and received five stars at Reader's Favorites Awards.
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