+ Pre-Order + Strange Sally Diamond, Liz Nugent ( paperback end March 2024)

£8.99

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember.

As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally's trust issues are about to be severely challenged . .
SKU:
More Details

A Little Unsteadily into Light : New Dementia-Inspired Fiction ( 2 Sept 2022)

£14.99

To live with dementia is to develop extraordinary and various new ways of being – linguistically, cognitively and practically. The storyteller operates similarly, using words and ideas creatively to reveal a slightly different perspective of the world.

In this anthology of fourteen new short stories, commissioned by Jan Carson and Jane Lugea, some of the best contemporary writers from Ireland and the UK powerfully and poignantly explore the depths and breadth of the real dementia experience, traversing age, ethnicity, class and gender, sex and consent.

Each writer’s story is drawn from their own personal experience of dementia and told with outrageous and dark humour, empathy and startling insight. Here are heroes and villains, tricksters and saints, mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, characters whose past has overshadowed their present and characters who are making a huge impact on the world they currently find themselves in. They might have dementia, but dementia is only a small part of who they are. They will challenge, frustrate, inspire and humble you.

Above all, these brilliant pieces of short fiction disrupt the perceived notions of what dementia is and, in their diversity, honesty and authenticity begin to normalise an illness that affects so many and break down the stigma endured by those living with it every day.

SKU:
More Details

A New Dream, Nigel Tilson and William Cherry ( paperback)

£17.00

The story of Northern Ireland’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 journey 

This is the ultimate underdog story: the story of a team who were resigned to operating in the backwaters of women’s international football before an inspirational figure instilled belief and passion in them. Players who had pulled on the green jersey year upon year, campaign after campaign, never dreamt they could reach the heights of appearing at a major tournament. That was until Kenny Shiels came along and sparked a new dream. He was a coach who had been there and done that in several countries, winning plenty of trophies along the way. Shiels had successfully managed a Northern Ireland international boys’ team in the past but he was keen to bring his know-how to the senior international stage. The veteran manager immediately set about reinvigorating the experienced players in the squad which he inherited - and introducing younger players who could step up to a higher level. He found a blend that worked. And he moulded a togetherness which players often describe as “one big family’. Flanked by his son Dean, goalkeeping coach Dwayne Nelson and a strong backroom team, he instilled a hunger and drive that led to a maiden appearance at a major tournament. Through words and the brilliant pictures of William Cherry this book charts, in chronological order, Northern Ireland’s incredible journey to UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 - often against the odds - and the part the senior women’s team played in the record-breaking tournament in Englan

SKU:
More Details

A Thread of Violence, Mark O’Connell ( paperback June 2024)

£16.99

From an award-winning author comes a tale of a notorious double-murder, for readers of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, or Emmanuel Carrere's The Adversary. In 1982 Malcolm Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate, found himself suddenly without money. The solution, he decided, was to rob a bank.

To do this, he would need a gun and a car. In the process of procuring them, he killed two people, and the circumstances of his eventual arrest in the apartment of Ireland's Attorney General nearly brought down the government. The case remains one of the most shocking in Ireland's history.

Mark O'Connell has long been haunted by the story of this brutal double murder. But in recent years this haunting has become mutual. When O'Connell sets out to unravel the mysteries still surrounding these horrific and inexplicable crimes, he tracks down Macarthur himself, now an elderly man living out his days in Dublin and reluctant to talk.

As the two men circle one another, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer?
SKU:
More Details

Acts of Desperation, Megan Nolan (paperback Jan 2022)

£9.99

Discover this bitingly honest, darkly funny debut novel about a toxic relationship and secret female desire, from an emerging star of Irish literature. Love was the final consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind.

I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead. Oh, don't laugh at me for this, for being a woman who says this to you.

I hear myself speak. Even now, even after all that took place between us, I can still feel how moved I am by him. Ciaran was that downy, darkening blond of a baby just leaving its infancy.

He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. None of it mattered in the end; what he looked like, who he was, the things he would do to me. To make a beautiful man love and live with me had seemed - obviously, intuitively - the entire point of life.

My need was greater than reality, stronger than the truth, more savage than either of us would eventually bear. How could it be true that a woman like me could need a man's love to feel like a person, to feel that I was worthy of life? And what would happen when I finally wore him down and took it? 'A dark, intense account of an obsessive love affair. It's great on the elation of falling in love and then its flip side, the anxiety, fixation and self-doubt.

 

'Such brilliant writing about female desire, co-dependant love...Incredibly honest and visceral' Marian Keyes

SKU:
More Details

After Dad, Claire Shiells (Paperback Sept 2022)

£9.99

A bittersweet love story exploring why good people sometimes do bad things... Millie Malone, a spirited, thirty-something journalist returns home to Northern Ireland after a life-changing decision leaves her London life in ruins. A family reunion soon unravels, opening old wounds and igniting new grievances regarding the murder of her father by the IRA decades earlier.

Retreating to the family cottage in Donegal, Millie soon meets Finn McFall, a fisherman originally from west Belfast, who loves to paint and recite Irish poetry. In the new modern Ireland, Millie believes religion is no longer a barrier for love. But she soon finds home is a place still struggling with a fragile peace and simmering sectarianism.

As events unfold, Millie is forced to decide between love and loyalty, eventually having to ask herself the ultimate question: can love really conquer all?
SKU:
More Details

All The Broken Places, John Boyne ( paperback July 2023)

£8.99

From the author of the globally bestselling, multi-million-copy classic, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, comes its astonishing and powerful sequel. 'When is a monster's child culpable? Guilt and complicity are multifaceted. John Boyne is a maestro of historical fiction.

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same mansion block in London for decades. She leads a comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark and disturbing past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Germany over seventy years before.

She doesn't talk about the post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn't talk about her father, the commandant of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. Then, a young family moves into the apartment below her.

In spite of herself, Gretel can't help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a violent argument between Henry's mother and his domineering father, one that threatens Gretel's hard-won, self-contained existence. Gretel is faced with a chance to expiate her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy - for the second time in her life.
SKU:
More Details

Bad Bridget : Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women, Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick

£14.99

Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a good place to be a woman. Among the wave of emigrants from Ireland to North America were many, many young women who travelled on their own, hoping for a better life. Some lived lives of quiet industry and piety.

Others quickly found themselves in trouble - bad trouble, and on an astonishing scale. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, creators of the celebrated 'Bad Bridget' podcast, have unearthed a world in which Irish women actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, in which you could get locked up for 'stubbornness', and in which a serial killer called Lizzie Halliday was described by the New York Times as 'the worst woman on earth'. They reveal the social forces that bred this mayhem and dysfunction, through stories that are brilliantly strange, sometimes funny, and often moving.

From sex workers and thieves to kidnappers and killers, these Bridgets are young women who have gone from the frying pan of their impoverished homeland to the fire of vast North American cities. Bad Bridget is a masterpiece of social history and true crime, showing us a fascinating and previously unexplored world.
SKU:
More Details

Barcelona, Mary Costello (hardback March 2024)

£14.99

In Barcelona, we meet a cast of characters who live turbulent inner lives. In a Spanish hotel room a marriage unravels as a young wife is haunted by a past love. A father travels to Paris to meet his scientist son and is exposed to his son's true nature.

A woman attends a reading by a famous author and comes to some painful realisations about her own marriage. The stories in Barcelona reveal the underlying disquiet of modern life and the sometimes brutal nature of humanity. Whether on city streets, long car journeys or in suburban rooms, we glimpse characters as they approach those moments of desperation - or revelation - that change or reshape fate.

One to look out for in 2024 - and a gorgeous book to have or gift. 

SKU:
More Details

Before My Actual Heart Breaks,Tish Delaney (paperback Oct 2021)

£9.99

_'If I could go back to being sixteen again, I'd do things differently.''Everyone over the age of forty feels like that, you total gom,' says my best friend Lizzie Magee. When she was young Mary Rattigan wanted to fly. She was going to take off like an angel from heaven and leave the muck and madness of troubled Northern Ireland behind.

Nothing but the Land of Happy Ever After would do for her. But as a Catholic girl with a B.I.T.C.H. for a Mammy and a silent Daddy, things did not go as she and Lizzie Magee had planned.

Now, five children, twenty-five years, an end to the bombs and bullets, enough whiskey to sink a ship and endless wakes and sandwich teas later, Mary's alone. She's learned plenty of hard lessons and missed a hundred steps towards the life she'd always hoped for. Will she finally find the courage to ask for the love she deserves? Or is it too late?' 

. . A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs.' ANNE GRIFFIN, author of When All is Said
SKU:
More Details

Being Various, New irish Short Stories ed. by Lucy Caldwell (paperback Oct 2020)

£9.99

Anthology of new writing from Ireland 

Featuring brand new short stories from Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Belinda McKeon, Lisa McInerney, Danielle McLaughlin, Stuart Neville, Sally Rooney, Kit de Waal and many more. Ireland is going through a golden age of writing: that has never been more apparent. 

Following her own acclaimed short-story collection, Multitudes, Lucy Caldwell guest-edits the sixth volume of Faber's long-running series of all new Irish short stories, continuing the work of the late David Marcus and subsequent guest editors, Joseph O'Connor, Kevin Barry and Deirdre Madden.

Image for Being Various : New Irish Short Stories

This is the new paperback edition. 

 

SKU:
More Details

Best Loved Irish Legends, Eithne Massey ( paperback 2018)

£11.99

Stories from long, long ago, part of an ancient oral tradition, handed down from generation to generation and written down by the Christian monks of medieval Ireland.

This hugely popular book is now available in paperback.

FAVOURITE LEGENDS include The Salmon of Knowledge - How Cu Chulainn Got His Name - The Children of Lir - The King with Donkey's Ears- Fionn and the Giant - The White Wolfhound- Oisin

SKU:
More Details

Big Girl Small Town, by Michelle Gallen ( paperback Feb 2021)

£9.99

Already shortlisted for a Women Comedy writing award, this has been described as Derry Girls meets Milkman. The unique blend of comedy and tragedy, with Michelle Gallen's 'Majella', is outrageous and honest.

Other people find Majella odd. She keeps herself to herself, she doesn't like gossip and she isn't interested in knowing her neighbours' business. But suddenly everyone in the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up wants to know all about hers.

Since her da disappeared during the Troubles, Majella has tried to live a quiet life with her alcoholic mother. She works in the local chip shop (Monday-Saturday, Sunday off), wears the same clothes every day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, nuked in the microwave) and binge watches Dallas (the best show ever aired on TV) from the safety of her single bed. She has no friends and no boyfriend and Majella thinks things are better that way.

But Majella's safe and predictable existence is shattered when her grandmother dies and as much as she wants things to go back to normal, Majella comes to realise that maybe there is more to life. And it might just be that from tragedy comes Majella's one chance at escape. 'It's a smasher' Kathy Burke

 

SKU:
More Details

Blank Pages, Bernard MacLaverty ( paperback August 2022)

£9.99

The extraordinary new story collection from one of Ireland's greatest writers and bestselling author of Midwinter Break. Bernard MacLaverty is a consummately gifted short-story writer and novelist whose work - like that of John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien or Colm Toibin - is deceptively simple on the surface, but carries a turbulent undertow. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing.

Blank Pages is a collection of twelve extraordinary new stories that show the emotional range of a master. 'Blackthorns', for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is the harrowing but transcendent 'The End of Days', which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the world's worst pandemic, until now.

Much of what MacLaverty writes is an amalgam of sadness and joy, of circumlocution and directness. He never wastes words but neither does he ever forget to make them sing. Each story he writes creates a universe.
SKU:
More Details

Breaking, Amanda Cassidy ( paperback April 2023)

£9.99


Shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award

Breaking : A compelling debut from a new voice in Irish crime fiction

It's every mother's worst fear. On a sun-hazed afternoon in the Florida Keys, a child goes missing from the beach. Dr Mirren Fitzpatrick appeals to the world to help find her eight-year-old adopted daughter. The family are on holiday from Ireland, far from home and desperate to return there as they arrived - together.

Yet the police are immediately suspicious of Mirren. She was drinking at a bar - alone - shortly before reporting that her youngest child had disappeared. As rumours abound about Mirren's past a trial-by-media ensues, and she is turned from a figure of pity to the villain of the piece.

And then a small body is found dumped in the ocean. Is Mirren a heartbroken mother, or the architect of her daughter's fate? A stunning debut from a brilliant new voice in Irish crime fiction, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Ashley Audrain. Breaking will see readers question their own notions of motherhood, guilt and the inescapable consequences of the past.

Praise for Breaking 'A rich, gut-punch of a crime thriller that delivers a confronting examination of maternal love and the expectations that weigh so heavily on women, even in their most unthinkably dark moments. In both pace and prose, Breaking is a hugely satisfying debut.' Ashley Audrain,
SKU:
More Details

Burning the Big House, Terence Dooley ( paperback April 2023)

£11.99

Burning the Big House : The Story of the Irish Country House in a Time of War and Revolution

The gripping story of the tumultuous destruction of the Irish country house, spanning the revolutionary years of 1912 to 1923 During the Irish Revolution nearly three hundred country houses were burned to the ground. These "Big Houses" were powerful symbols of conquest, plantation, and colonial oppression and were caught up in the struggle for independence and the conflict between the aristocracy and those demanding access to more land. Stripped of their most important artifacts, most of the houses were never rebuilt, and ruins such as Summerhill stood like ghostly figures for generations to come.

Terence Dooley offers a unique perspective on the Irish Revolution, exploring the struggles over land, the impact of the Great War, and why the country mansions of the landed class became such a symbolic target for republicans throughout the period. Dooley details the shockingly sudden acts of occupation and destruction-including soldiers using a Rembrandt as a dart board-and evokes the exhilaration felt by the revolutionaries at seizing these grand houses and visibly overturning the established order.

SKU:
More Details

Cacophony of Bone, Kerri Ni Dochartaigh (paperback Jan 2024)

£10.99

Two days after the Winter Solstice in 2019 Kerri and her partner M moved to a small, remote railway cottage in the heart of Ireland. They were looking for a home, somewhere to stay put. What followed was a year of many changes.

The pandemic arrived and their isolated home became a place of enforced isolation. It was to be a year unlike any we had seen before. But the seasons still turned, the swallows came at their allotted time, the rhythms of the natural world went on unchecked.

For Kerri there was to be one more change, a longed-for but unhoped for change. Cacophony of Bone maps the circle of a year - a journey from one place to another, field notes of a life - from one winter to the next. It is a telling of a changed life, in a changed world - and it is about all that does not change.

All that which simply keeps on - living and breathing, nesting and dying - in spite of it all. When the pandemic came time seemed to shapeshift, so this is also a book about time. It is, too, a book about home, and what that can mean.

Fragmentary in subject and form, fluid of language, this is an ode to a year, a place, and a love, that changed a life.
SKU:
More Details

Close To Home, Michael Magee ( hardback April 2023 / pre-order paperback April 2024)

£14.99


Luminous and devastating, a portrait of modern masculinity as shaped by class, by trauma, and by silence, but also by the courage to love and to survive Sean's brother Anthony is a hard man. When they were kids their ma did her best to keep him out of trouble but you can't say anything to Anto. Sean was supposed to be different.
He was supposed to leave and never come back. But Sean does come back. Arriving home after university, he finds Anthony's drinking is worse than ever.

Meanwhile the jobs in Belfast have vanished, Sean's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on and no one will give him the time of day. One night he loses control and assaults a stranger at a party, and everything is tipped into chaos. Close to Home witnesses the aftermath of that night, as Sean attempts to make sense of who he has become, and to reckon with the relationships that have shaped him, for better and worse.

Drawing from his own experiences, Michael Magee examines the forces which keep young working class men in harm's way, in a debut novel which shines with intelligence and humanity on every page. Close to Home is an extraordinary work of fiction about deciding what kind of a man you want to be and finding your place in the scarred city you call home.
SKU:
More Details

Constellations: Reflections from Life, Sinead Gleason (paperback, Apr 2020)

£10.99

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020**Winner of non-fiction book of the year at the Irish Book Awards*'

I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal.

A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles. How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? How do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinead Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within these pages, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself.

Throughout this wide-ranging collection she also turns her restless eye outwards delving into work, art and our very ways of seeing. In the tradition of some of our finest life writers, and yet still in her own spirited, generous voice, Sinead takes us on a journey that is both uniquely personal and yet universal in its resonance. H

SKU:
More Details

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died, Seamas O' Reilly ( paperback June 2022)

£9.99

THE IRISH TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER and AN POST BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR

Seamas O'Reilly's mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten brothers and sisters and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble (most of the time), and Seamus at that point was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a book about a family of argumentative, loud, musical, sarcastic, grief-stricken siblings, shepherded into adulthood by a man whose foibles and reticence were matched only by his love for his children and his determination that they would flourish. It is the moving, often amusing and completely unsentimental story of a boy growing up in a family bonded by love, loss and fairly relentless mockery

SKU:
More Details

Dinner Party : A Tragedy, Sarah Gilmartin (paperback July 2022)

£16.99

** This is one of the most astute, enjoyable books I've read this year so far!** Linda 

Kate has taught herself to be careful, to be meticulous. To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, she plans a dinner party - from the fancy table settings to the perfect Baked Alaska waiting in the freezer. Yet by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests have fled, and Kate is spinning out of control.

But all we have is ourselves, her father once said, all we have is family. Set between the 1990s and the present day, from a farmhouse in Carlow to Trinity College, Dublin, Dinner Party is a dark, sharply observed debut that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy. As the past catches up with the present, Kate learns why, despite everything, we can't help returning home.

SKU:
More Details

Duffy and Son, Damian Owens ( paperback August 2023)

£9.99

A heart-warming and hilarious novel about life, love, and the weight of all we leave unsaid, Duffy & Son is a quietly moving masterpiece from one of Ireland's most gifted comic writers. Eugene Duffy is turning 70; his son Jim is turning 40. For decades now, they've been running the family hardware shop and living in good-natured bachelor harmony.

But time is marching on, and with thoughts of old age weighing heavily on his mind, Eugene is growing increasingly concerned about his son's future. He resolves to help in the best way possible: by finding Jim a wife. And he's not going to let anyone - let alone Jim himself - stand in his way.

Reminiscent of Fredrik Backman's bestselling novel A Man Called Ove, Duffy and Son contains a likeable but curmudgeonly main character, wry humour, tremendous heart, as well as a strong sense of community
SKU:
More Details

Eva and the Perfect Rain : A Rainy Irish Tale, Tatyana Feeney

£8.99

Eva wakes up to find that it's raining - again! She is thrilled because she can't wait to use her new umbrella but after breakfast the rain is too soft for an umbrella. The rain is lovely but it's just not perfect umbrella rain!Eva spends the day searching and hoping for the perfect umbrella rain that's not too windy, too thundery or too drizzly. Finally, she finds it in a sun shower and a rainbow shines making it the most perfect rain of all.

Embrace rainy Ireland with Eva in this beautiful and delightful picture book!
SKU:
More Details

Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan ( paperback, March 2021)

£8.99

Likely to fill the Sally-Rooney-shaped hole in many readers' lives' IRISH TIMES

'Droll, shrewd and unafraid - a winning debut' Hilary Mantel

* Longlisted for Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 * NOW IN PAPERBACK ( cover as hardback) 

When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents' money, it's called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she's not sure what to call it, but it involves: - a badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children; - Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room; - Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks; - money, love, cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections.

This is an acutely self conscious and clever tale. 

SKU:
More Details

Eyewitness to War and Peace, Eamonn Mallie ( paperback Feb 2024)

£17.99

In this gripping memoir, Eamonn Mallie takes us on an extraordinary journey through his life as a journalist in Northern Ireland. From the frontlines of the Troubles to the corridors of power, Mallie’s fearless reporting and unrelenting pursuit of the truth have made him a legendary figure in Irish journalism. Having gained unparalleled access to key players, Mallie shares his reflections on his groundbreaking interviews with John Hume, Gerry Adams, Margaret Thatcher, Ian Paisley, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and a host of other influential figures involved in the peace process. From adrenaline-fuelled moments on the ground to frank conversations with political heavyweights, Eyewitness to War and Peace is a captivating read that sheds new light on the challenges and triumphs of navigating the world of journalism in a divided society. An unflinching testament to the power of investigative reporting and the enduring pursuit of peace, this is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Northern Ireland’s troubled past and its hopeful future.
SKU:
More Details

Falling Animals, Sheila Armstrong ( hardback May 2023)

£14.99

'Lush, lyrical and cleverly-constructed. A beautiful book.' Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses The disquieting story of an unidentified man as told by those who crossed paths with him on the last day of his life, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel is haunting, lyrical and darkly suspensefulOn an isolated beach set against a lonely, windswept coastline, a pale figure sits serenely against a sand dune staring out to sea. His hands are folded neatly in his lap, his ankles are crossed and there is a faint smile on his otherwise lifeless face.

Months later, after a fruitless investigation, the nameless stranger is buried in an unmarked grave. But the mystery of his life and death lingers on, drawing the nearby villagers into its wake. From strandings to shipwrecks, it is not the first time that strangeness has washed up on their shores.

Told through a chorus of voices, Falling Animals follows the crosshatching threads of lives both true and imagined, real and surreal, past and present. Slowly, over great time and distance, the story of one man, alone on a beach, begins to unravel. Elegiac and atmospheric, dark and disquieting, Sheila Armstrong's debut novel marks her arrival as one of the most uniquely gifted writers at work in literary fiction today.

Paperback from May 2024

SKU:
More Details

Forever Home, Graham Norton ( pb April 23)

£9.99

The new novel from bestselling author and personality Graham Norton.

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland, her only son now grown. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging. The new relationship sparks local speculation: what does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned them all those years ago? But the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer.

When Declan becomes ill, things start to fall apart. His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home with its worn oak floors and elegant features and move back in with her parents. Carol's mother is determined to get to the bottom of things, she won't see her daughter suffer in this way.

It seems there are secrets in Declan's past, strange rumours that were never confronted and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance. In his tense and darkly comic new novel Norton casts a light on the relationship between mothers and daughters, and truth and self-preservation with unnerving effect.

SKU:
More Details

Foster, Claire Keegan ( paperback)

£8.99

From the author of the Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These, a heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers. 'A real jewel.' Irish Independent'A small miracle.' Sunday Times'A thing of finely honed beauty.' Guardian'Thrilling.' Richard Ford'As good as Chekhov.' David MitchellIt is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm, not knowing when she will return home.

In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. But in a house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers how fragile her idyll is.

Now a stunning and emotional film, The Quiet Girl ( part Irish / Eng with subtitles) 

SKU:
More Details

From a Low and Quiet Sea, by Donal Ryan (paperback April 2019)

£9.99

From war torn Syria to small town Ireland, three men, all scarred by what they have loved and lost, are searching for some version of home. 

Powerful and moving. Donal Ryan’s writing has the ability to take you straight to the heart of the character - and he makes it look easy !

***LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018******SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2018*

Farouk's country has been torn apart by war. Lampy's heart has been laid waste by Chloe. John's past torments him as he nears his end.

The refugee. The dreamer. The penitent.  Each is drawn towards a powerful reckoning, one that will bring them together in the most unexpected of ways.


SKU:
More Details

From The Gaeltacht to Galicia: A Son’s Tale, by Paul Murray ( large paperback Sept 2021)

£12.99

The inspirational story of how the love a Belfast Doctor had for his Gaeltacht sweetheart prevailed despite the horrors of captivity in Japanese POW camps during World War Two. 

Frank Murray and Eileen O'Kane met in Donegal and struck up a friendship. Frank later joined the British army as a medic and was deployed to Singapore. He and teacher Eileen wrote extensively to each other, and it is through these letters and Frank's journals that we gain a remarkable insight into life during these times.

From the description of the BBC I Player documentary - search Litir Grea Dara ...

 

Scéal inspioráideach an dochtúra as Béal Feirste a thit i ngrá le bean agus é tréimhse sa Ghaeltacht, agus an bealach ar tháinig sé slán as campaí géibhinn na Seapánach le linn an Dara Chogaidh Dhomhanda. Casadh Frank Murray agus Eileen O’Kane ar a chéile i Rann na Feirste ar chúrsa Gaeilge. Cháiligh seisean mar dhochtúir agus liostáil sé in Arm na Breataine. Cuireadh go Singeapór ansin é mar dhochtúir leis an Arm. Thosaigh sé féin agus Eileen comhfhreagras litreach. Bhí sise ina múinteoir faoin am seo. 

Tugann na litreacha agus an dialann a choinnigh Frank an-léargas ar an saol mar a bhí le linn an chogaidh. Ó am go ham, scríobhadh sé giotaí i nGaeilge. Bhí sé ina Cheann Feadhna ar an champa géibhinn a raibh sé féin ina phríosúnach ann i dtuaisceart na Seapáine. 

Ní fios cén bhrúidiúlacht nó cén chiapadh a chonaic Frank agus a chuid comrádaithe sa phríosún. Tháinig sé slán as an uafás. Sheas Eileen leis ar feadh 42 mí go dtí gur ghéill an tSeapáin, tír a bhí briste, brúite ar deireadh, i mí Lúnasa, 1945. Tháinig sé abhaile agus trí mhí ina dhiaidh sin, phós an bheirt acu. 

Insítear an scéal trína gcuid litreacha, trí chuntas an teaghlaigh agus le hionchur ó staraithe, iarshaighdiúirí agus síceolaithe. 

 

SKU:
More Details

Grapefruit Moon, Shirley McMillan ( paperback August 2023)

£8.99

Wealthy, popular Charlotte and quiet, working class Drew couldn't be more different, but both face a common enemy at Cooke's Academy in the form of the Stewards - an elite group of students whose power to manipulate school culture is feared by pupils and teachers alike. Drew, a newcomer to Cooke's, must navigate the strict codes of masculinity laid down by the Stewards in order to have a hope of moving on to university, while Charlotte dreams of speaking freely about the constraints and abuses of the culture which is propelling her towards a life she's not sure she wants. Through drag art and poetry the unlikely pair follow a dangerous trajectory which will lead them closer to one another and further away from the paths laid out for them.

SMcM is brilliant at talking the language of the 15+, not patronising or didactic, she really 'gets' the age group and her stories are gripping. Not just for the teens either! L 

 

SKU:
More Details

Happy Couple, Naoise Dolan (hardback 25th May 2023)

£16.99

Meet the happy couple. Luke and Celine, are in mutual unrequited love with each other, set to marry in a year's time. The best man, Archie, is meant to want to move up the corporate ladder and on from his love for Luke; yet he stands where he is, admiring the view.

The bridesmaid, Phoebe, Celine's sister, has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette and getting to the bottom of Luke's frequent unexplained disappearances. Then there's the guest, Vivian, who with the benefit of some emotional distance, methodically observes her friends like ants. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after - but does it lie at the end of an aisle? Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times, makes the Marriage Plot entirely her own in a sparkling ensemble novel that is both ferociously clever and supremely enjoyable.
SKU:
More Details

Here Is The Beehive, Sarah Crossan ( paperback July 2021)

£8.99

What would you do if you lost someone the world never knew was yours? For three years, Ana has been consumed by an affair with Connor, a client at her law firm. Their love has been consigned to hotel rooms and dark corners of pubs, their relationship kept hidden from the world. So the morning that Ana's company receives a call to say that Connor is dead, her secret grief has nowhere to go.

Desperate for an outlet, Ana seeks out the shadowy figure who has always stood just beyond her reach - Connor's wife Rebecca...

'Utterly gripping' RODDY DOYLE'

One of Paul and I's favourites - really engrossing read - Linda 

SKU:
More Details

HISTORY OF IRELAND IN MAPS

£25.00



History of Ireland in Maps

by Pat Liddy (Author) , Collins Books (Author)

  •  
  • Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
  • Imprint:Collins
  • ISBN:9780008469504
  • Published:12 Oct 2023
  • Classifications:


  • Weight:1158g
  • Dimensions:276 x 214 x 26 (mm)
  • Pub. Country:United Kingdom
  • Explore Ireland' s fascinating story with more than 100 maps. From the early history of the Emerald Isle to the modern day, Ireland has evolved rapidly along with the ways in which it has been mapped. Cartography has not only kept pace with these changes, but often driven them.

Combining the artistic world of early cartography with modern computerised surveys, this is a beautiful and unique addition to any map- or history-lover's collection. Irish author and historian Pat Liddy produces an invaluable history of Ireland and its relationship with its neighbours, and indeed, the world. 
SKU:
More Details

Home, Chilean Stead (paperback JULY 2023)

£8.99

Someone has broken into Zoe's flat. A man she thought she'd never have to see again. They call him the Hand of God.

He knows about her job in the cafe, her life in Dublin, her ex-girlfriend, even the knife she's hidden under the mattress. She thought she'd left him far behind, along with the cult of the Children and their isolated compound Home - but now he's found her, and Zoe realises she must go back with him if she's to rescue the sister who helped her escape originally. But returning to Home means going back to the enforced worship and strict gender roles Zoe has long since moved beyond.

Back to the abuse and indoctrination she's fought desperately to overcome... Going back will make her question everything she believed about her past - and risk her hard-won freedom. Can she break free a second time?'An absolute triumph....

 

Absorbing, moving, and alarmingly believable, Home is an unforgettable story about identity, family, and the terrifying dynamics of a cult' Carole Johnstone, author of Mirrorland

SKU:
More Details

How to Build a Boat, Elaine Feeney ( preorder paperback April 2024)

£16.99

A gorgeous gift of a novel, hopeful and full of humanity'- Douglas Stuart, Booker-Prize winning author of SHUGGIE BAIN

Jamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born.

In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him. How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, Tess and Tadhg, and brings together a community.

Written with tenderness and verve, it's about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone

SKU:
More Details

How to Fix Northern Ireland, Malachi O'Doherty ( large paperback April 2023)

£16.99

A highly topical and original investigation into the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland, published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. 

Yet, in this controversial and provocative new book, Malachi O'Doherty argues that it completely ignored the real reason behind the conflict and instead left a  wound at the core of society.

Part memoir, part history and part polemic, How to Fix Northern Ireland shows how the country's deep division is simply not about whether it should be governed as part of Ireland or as part of Britain - as presumed by the agreement - but rather is fundamentally sectarian, an inter-ethnic stress comparable to racism. O'Doherty reveals how the split between catholics and protestants continues to invade everyday life - from education and segregated housing, from street protests, bonfires and parades to the high politics of power sharing and Brexit - and asks what can be done to solve a centuries-old social rift and heal the relationship at the heart of the problem.

SKU:
More Details

How to Gut A Fish, Sheila Armstrong ( paperback Feb 2023)

£9.99

Unsettling, unpredictable, and brilliant' Roddy Doyle

In sumptuous and evocative prose, Sheila Armstrong writes stories that are unnerving and unsettling. Stories which make you go, wait, wait, what was that? ' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled GroundOn a boat offshore, a fisherman guts a mackerel as he anxiously awaits a midnight rendezvous. Villagers, one by one, disappear into a sinkhole beneath a yew tree.

A nameless girl is taped, bound and put on display in a countryside market. A man returning home following the death of his mother finds something disturbing among her personal effects. A dazzling and disquieting collection of stories, how to gut a fish places the bizarre beside the everyday and then elegantly and expertly blurs the lines.

An exciting new Irish writer whose sharp and lyrical prose unsettles and astounds in equal measure, Sheila Armstrong's exquisitely provocative stories carve their way into your mind and take hold. 'Dark, devilishly well written and full of atmosphere, How to Gut a Fish is one of the most original and affecting short story collections I've read in years' Jan Carson, author of The Fire Starters.

£9.99 paperback available from mid February 2023. 

SKU:
More Details

If The River is Hidden. Cherry Smyth ( paperback, Nov 22)

£9.99

If the River is Hidden charts the journey of two writers from the source to the mouth of the Bann, Northern Ireland's longest river. Through a dialogue of prose and poetry the history, landscape and divisions that have come to define the North are explored and challenged. With backgrounds from each side of the sectarian divide, theirs is a journey of uncovering a sense of place and of searching for meaning; a reshaping of the authors' own memories, experiences and expectations.

For like the river, it is not just what is visible, but what is hidden, that comes to define us.
SKU:
More Details

In Kiltumper : A Year in an Irish Garden ( Niall Williams,Christine Breen) paperback April 2023

£12.99

'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMESWhen they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth.

In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the surrounding land threatened by the arrival of turbines, Niall and Christine decided to document a year - in words and Christine's drawings - of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.
SKU:
More Details