Irish Writing
Thin Places, Kerri Ni Dochartaigh (paperback Jan 2022)
£10.99
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDED'
Remarkable' Robert Macfarlane'Beautiful' Amy Liptrot'Powerful, unflinching . . .
Part hymn to nature, part Troubles memoir' Guardian Kerri ni Dochartaigh was born in Derry at the very height of the Troubles. One parent was Catholic, the other Protestant. In the space of a year Kerri's family were forced out of two homes and when she was eleven a homemade petrol bomb was thrown through her bedroom window.
For families like hers, terror was in the very fabric of the city. In Thin Places, Kerri explores how nature kept her sane and helped her heal, and how we are again allowing our borders to become hard and terror to creep back in. Kerri asks us to reclaim and rejoice in our landscape, and to remember that the land we fight over is much more than lines on a map.
Shadow Arts, Damien Love ( paperback Jan 22)
£7.99
The Shadow Arts : 'A dark, mysterious, adrenaline-pumping rollercoaster of a story'
The thrilling sequel to Monstrous Devices - Alex and his grandfather hold the fate of history itself in their hands in a Rick Riordan meets Raiders of the Lost Ark adventure of epic proportions! When Alex's grandfather sent him a tin robot with strange powers, his world changed forever... Now, Alex must help his grandfather rescue his old friend Harry, who has fallen into the clutches of a formidable foe. The duo's mission takes them on a desperate dash across Europe, chasing down the mystery Harry was investigating when he disappeared.
But can Alex work out the ancient secret that lies hidden in the depths of Germany's Black Forest and harness the powers of his robot before it's too late?Innocent lives - and even history itself - are at stake.
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.
Panenka, Ronan Hession ( paperback, Feb 2022)
£9.99
His name was Joseph, but for years they had called him Panenka, a name that was his sadness and his story. Panenka has spent 25 years living with the disastrous mistakes of his past, which have made him an exile in his home town and cost him his dearest relationships. Now aged 50, Panenka begins to rebuild an improvised family life with his estranged daughter and her seven year old son.But at night, Panenka suffers crippling headaches that he calls his Iron Mask. Faced with losing everything, he meets Esther, a woman who has come to live in the town to escape her own disappointments. Together, they find resonance in each other's experiences and learn new ways to let love into their broken lives.
Vinegar Hill, poetry by Colm Toibin ( paperback March 2022)
£12.99
From the highly acclaimed author of Brooklyn, Colm Toibin's first collection of poetry explores sexuality, religion and belonging through a modern lens. Fans of Colm Toibin's novels, including The Magician, The Master and Nora Webster, will relish the opportunity to re-encounter Toibin in verse.Vinegar Hill explores the liminal space between private experiences and public events as Toibin examines a wide range of subjects - politics, queer love, reflections on literary and artistic greats, living through COVID, memory and a fading past, and facing mortality. The poems reflect a life well-travelled and well-lived; from growing up in the town of Enniscorthy, wandering the streets of Dublin and Barcelona, and crossing the bridges of Venice to visiting the White House, readers will travel through familiar locations and new destinations through Toibin's unique lens. Within this rich collection of poems written over the course of several decades, shot through with keen observation, emotion and humour, Toibin offers us lines and verses to provoke, ponder and cherish.
These Days, Lucy Caldwell (paperback March 2023 )
£8.99
The new novel from the Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2021.
Two sisters, four nights, one city. April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war - so far.
Over the next two months, it's going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished. Many won't make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged. Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey - one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman - as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of bombing which were the Belfast Blitz, These Days is a timeless and heart-breaking novel about living under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves.
WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION
WINNER OF THE E. M. FORSTER AWARD
AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4s BOOK AT BEDTIME
Rock Paper Killers ( YA), Alexia Mason ( March 2022 paperback)
£7.99
he brand-new addictive thriller that fans of Karen M. McManus and Holly Jackson will be DYING to read. The ROCK she fell from .. . The PAPER she clutched .
. . The KILLERS she thought were friends .
. . When five Dublin teenagers arrive at a rural coastal college to cram for their final exams, their most pressing concern is the prospect of a month with no partying.
Little do they know that one of them will never make it back home . . .
A page-turning and gripping thriller with a shocking twist, Rock Paper Killers is perfect for fans of Riverdale, One of Us is Lying and We Were Liars.
LENNY, by Laura McVeigh ( large paperback March 2022)
£13.99
Such a lovely story. A young boy and his father, living in the oppressive and run down deep south, with a litany of disadvantages to overcome. But somehow the story is full of hope, and humanity, friendship and courage. I found myself hooked through every chapter.
I'd recommend it to 9+ children, and their parents!
If you enjoy RJ Palaccio, Katya Balen .. this is the same genre.
Truth Be Told, Sue Divin ( paperback April 2022)
£7.99
The gripping new YA novel from Sue Divin, the acclaimed and Carnegie shortlisted author of Guard Your Heart. She's writing about contemporary Derry and it's brilliant!
Northern Ireland. 2019. Tara has been raised by her mam and nan in Derry City. Faith lives in rural Armagh. Their lives on opposite sides of a political divide couldn't be more different.
Until they come face-to-face with each other and are shocked to discover they look almost identical. Are they connected?In searching for the truth about their own identities, the teenagers uncover more than they bargained for. But what if finding out who you truly are means undermining everything you've ever known?
The Quiet Whispers Never Stop, Olivia Fitzsimons ( paperback March 2023)
£8.99
In 1982, Nuala Malin struggles to stay connected, to her husband, to motherhood, to the smallness of her life in the belly of a place that is built on hate and stagnation. Her daughter Sam and baby son PJ keep her tethered to this life she doesn't want. She finds unexpected refuge with a seventeen-year-old boy, but this relationship is only temporary, a sticking plaster on a festering wound.
It cannot last and when her chance to leave Northern Ireland comes, Nuala takes it. In 1994, Sam Malin plans escape. She longs for a life outside her dysfunctional family, far away from the North and all its troubles, free from her quiet brooding father Patsy, who never talks about her mother, Nuala; a woman Sam barely knew, who abandoned them twelve years ago.
She finds solace in music, drugs and her best friend Becca, but most of all in an illicit relationship with a jagged, magnetic older man.
I found this coming of age story powerful, toxic and very very readable - loved the imaginative voice and thoughts of Sam - Linda, BPS
The End of The World is A Cul De Sac, Louise Kennedy ( paperback May 2022)
£8.99
A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
The secrets people kept, the lies they told. In these visceral, stunningly crafted stories, people are effortlessly cruel to one another, and the natural world is a primitive salve.
Here, women are domestically trapped by predatorial men, Ireland's folklore and politics loom large, and poverty - material, emotional, sexual - seeps through every crack. A wife is abandoned by her new husband in a ghost estate, with blood on her hands; a young woman is tormented by visions of the man murdered by her brother during the Troubles; a pregnant mother fears the worst as her husband grows illegal cannabis with the help of a vulnerable teenage girl; a woman struggles to forgive herself after an abortion threatens to destroy her marriage. Announcing a major new voice in literary fiction for the twenty-first century, these sharp shocks of stories offer flashes of beauty, and even humour, amidst the harshest of truths.
This Train Is For, Bernie McGill ( paperback, June 2022)
£12.00
A great collection of 'caught at the moment ' short stories from Northern Irish Bernie McGill ( author of The Watch House, The Butterfly Cabinet, Sleepwalkers)
These stories have a delicacy, an emotional connection and a sense of what's between the lines, in a range of voices and characters. Very enjoyable.
Spies in Canaan, David Park ( paperback May 2023)
£16.99
Michael has travelled a long way from his boyhood under the endless skies of the Midwest. His retirement is peaceful, if solitary. But one day there is a visitation: a mysterious car on the seafront, and a package delivered.
From its contents, Michael understands that he has been commissioned to undertake a final journey. As Michael makes his way deep into a distant desert - a strange and liminal landscape that lies between hell and redemption - he undertakes another journey, into long-suppressed memories: of Vietnam and the dying days of war, and to face a final accounting for what was done. Taut, atmospheric and moving, Spies in Canaan is a powerful elegy to the pain of love, the guilt of old age, and the grace of atonement.
'It is seldom that one can say a book is perfect, but this is as close as I've seen in a very long time' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT'
Skittles, Neil Speers ( paperback June 2022)
£9.99
An eclectic set of short stories, written in verse, and often using the North Antrim vernacular.
Beautifully illustrated on front cover with Neil's own art.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died, Seamas O' Reilly ( paperback June 2022)
£10.99
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
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?
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.
Run Time, Catherine Ryan Howard ( hardback August 2022)
£8.99
Movie-making can be murder. The project is Final Draft, a psychological horror, being filmed at a house deep in a forest, miles from anywhere in the wintry wilds of West Cork.
The lead Former soap-star Adele Rafferty has stepped in to replace the original actress at the very last minute. She can't help but hope that this opportunity will be her big break - and she knows she was lucky to get it, after what happened the last time she was on a set. The problem Something isn't quite right about Final Draft.
When the strange goings-on in the script start to happen on set too, Adele begins to fear that the real horror lies off the page...
CRH writes a fantastic, page turning accessible crime novel - try her others too!
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.
It Could Never Happen Here, Eithne Shortall (paperback Sept 22)
£8.99
Small town. Huge scandal.Beverley Franklin will do whatever it takes to protect her local school's reputation. So when a scandal involving her own daughter threatens to derail the annual school musical's appearance on national television, Beverley goes into overdrive. But in her efforts to protect her daughter and keep the musical on track, she misses what's really going, both in her own house and in the insular Glass Lake community - with dramatic consequences.
Glass Lake primary school's reputation is about to be shattered... 'Eithne Shortall mixes humour and tragedy with a deftness reminiscent of Marian Keyes' Irish Times
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
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,
Poems for When You Can't Find the Words : A comforting collection from Irish Hospice Foundation.
£15.99
From Irish Hospice Foundation, who so compassionately provide end-of-life and bereavement care, this collection provides the gift of words at a time when words can be hard to find and is designed to speak to the fears and concerns that illness and approaching death awaken. Created in conjunction with Poetry Ireland and including poems from Seamus Heaney, Brendan Kennelly, Emily Dickinson and Paul Durcan, this is a collection of words to comfort in the most troubled times. Whether you or a loved one are facing the end of life, or if you're grieving the loss of someone close, you will find solace and refuge here.
Living with Ghosts : The Inside Story from a 'Troubles' Mind by Brian Rowan ( large paperback Sept 2022)
£16.99
Brian Rowan is a former BBC correspondent in Belfast. Since the late 1980s, he has reported on all the major developments on Northern Ireland’s journey from war to peace; stories he has told using a range of sources – IRA, loyalist, police, military, intelligence, political, Church and others. Rowan left the BBC in 2005, the year the IRA ended its armed campaign. Four times he has been a category winner in the Northern Ireland Press and Broadcast awards, including twice as Specialist Journalist of the Year. Living With Ghosts is his seventh book.
For many of us who have lived through the troubles, the past is something we’ve tried to forget, move on from, suppress. But it’s still there in our politics, in our sense of who we are and where we are going. I have long respected Brian Rowan’s work and enjoyed this book which explores the unreported world of the troubles; the secrets, the corruption, the lies, and the struggles. Brian argues that we cannot create a seamless narrative of the past, a full and agreed account of the past is not achievable, but, as he argues in the chapter on amnesty, there is a way out of it, albeit messy and never complete. We will never know the whole story but books like these help.
There’s been a little Incident, Alice Ryan ( paperback June 23)
£9.99
Warm, wry and genuinely funny. Alice Ryan has a great ability to describe the nuances of people.' Marian Keyes
A witty and warm debut novel from a young Irish writer. A story of family, grief, and the ways we come together when all seems lost.
Molly Black has disappeared. She's been flighty since her parents died, but this time - or so says her hastily written note - she's gone for good. That's why the whole Black clan - from Granny perched on the printer to Killian on Zoom from Sydney - is huddled together in the Dublin suburbs, arguing over what to do.
Former model Lady V presumes Molly's just off taking drugs and sleeping with strangers - which is fine by her. Cousin Anne, tired of living in Molly's shadow, is keeping quiet, and cousin Bobby is distracted by his own issues. But Molly's disappearance is eerily familiar to Uncle John.
He is determined never to lose anyone again. Especially not his niece, who is more like her mum than she realises. Praise for There's Been a Little Incident: 'Here is a story that takes on grief in its many insidious guises, and yet this brave, big-hearted novel is full of warmth and wisdom.
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.
The Ghost Limb, Claire Mitchell ( November 2022, paperback)
£15.00
Where did the spirit of 1798 go?
Did northern Protestants forget their history?
Who are the keepers of the flame?
In The Ghost Limb a group of northern Protestants retrace the steps of the United Irishmen, who worked for the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter over two hundred years ago. In a quest to reconnect with this lost heritage, they walk and talk their way through the landscapes of County Down and Antrim. They go to political meetings, take Irish language classes, visit graveyards, pubs, churches and protests. They commune with radical ghosts and personal ancestors. And they chalk messages on walls.
As they search for the spirit of 1798, they bring a new politics alive in the present. They begin to imagine a different future.
The book pulls together history, politics and personal stories, with a little magical thinking, to bring alternative Protestant identities back into the light.
The Irish Difference : A Tumultuous History of Ireland's Breakup With Britain by Fergal Tobin ( paperback Jan 2023))
£10.99
For hundreds of years, the islands and their constituent tribes that make up the British Isles have lived next door to each other in a manner that, over time, suggested some movement towards political union. It was an uneven, stop-start business and it worked better in some places than in others.Still, England, Wales and Scotland have hung together through thick and thin, despite internal divisions of language, religion, law, culture and disposition that might have broken up a less resilient polity. And, for a long time, it seemed that something similar might have been said about the smaller island to the west: Ireland. Ireland was always a more awkward fit in the London-centric mini-imperium but no one imagined that it might detach itself altogether, until the moment came for rupture, quite suddenly and dramatically, in the fall-out from World War I.
So, what was it - is it - about Ireland that is so different? Different enough to sever historical ties of centuries with such sudden violence and unapologetic efficiency. Wherein lies the Irish difference, a difference sufficient to have caused a rupture of that nature?In a wide-ranging and witty narrative, historian Fergal Tobin looks into Ireland's past, taking in everything from religion and politics to sports and literature, and traces the roots of her journey towards independence.
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)
The Way We Were : Catholic Ireland Since 1922, Mary Kenny (hardback Aug 22)
£17.99
At a time when the values of Catholic Ireland are so often viewed in a negative, even hostile, light, Mary Kenny's approach is a balanced and measured recollection of the Ireland of our times - and of times past, since the foundation of the Irish state a hundred years ago. She focuses on the people and personalities involved in our social history, seeing Ireland from 1922 to 2022 through their stories, and the events in which they were involved. Yes, there have been stark failings in Irish society, involving the position and power of the Catholic church, and these must be honestly described.Yet our values, our heritage, our own family members also included many kind, intelligent and patriotic people doing their best, who built up the Irish state from a fragile beginning.
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
My Father’s House, Joseph O’Connor ( paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them. September 1943: German forces occupy Rome.
SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway.
He gathers a team to set up an Escape Line. But Hauptmann's net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmas, it's too late to turn back.
Based on a true story, My Father's House is a powerful thriller from a master of historical fiction. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances. 'A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie' Sunday Times'A masterwork...
so urgent, so incredibly alive... A searing and beautiful example of storytelling's infinite importance' Donal Ryan
Paperback Feb 2024
Bad Bridget : Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick (paperback Jan 2024)
£10.99
Bad Bridget : Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women,
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.
Old God's Time, Sebastian Barry ( Paperback Feb 2024)
£9.99
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door.
Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children. But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past. A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God's Time is about what we live through, what we live with, and what may survive of us.
Sebastian Barry is one of my favourite irish writers, don't miss this one - Linda .. preorder for 1 Feb release of Paperback edition ( same cover)
Shocking, stunning and extraordinarily brave. Barry has once again written a character for the ages.' LIZ NUGENT
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 . .
Nothing Special, Nicole Flattery ( hardback Mar 2023, paperback March 2024)
£9.99
A wildly original debut novel about two young women navigating the complex worlds of Andy Warhol's Factory, and coming of age in 1960s New YorkNew York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother's sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets.When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement.
Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story about friendship, independence and the construction of art and identity, bringing to life the experience of young women in this iconic and turbulent moment.
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We Don’t Know Ourselves- Fintan O’Toole ( paperback March 2023)
£12.00
Finally into paperback, this is a seminal discussion book for anyone interested in the past and future of Ireland.
We Don't Know Ourselves is a very personal vision of recent Irish history from the year of O'Toole's birth, 1958, down to the present. Ireland has changed almost out of recognition during those decades, and Fintan O'Toole's life coincides with that arc of transformation. The book is a brilliant interweaving of memories (though this is emphatically not a memoir) and engrossing social and historical narrative.
This was the era of Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and John Charles McQuaid, of sectarian civil war in the North and the Pope's triumphant visit in 1979, but also of those who began to speak out against the ruling consensus - feminists, advocates for the rights of children, gay men and women coming out of the shadows. We Don't Know Ourselves is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand modern Ireland.
Wild Embrace : Connecting to the Wonder of Ireland's Natural World, Anja Murray
£14.99
Wild Embrace is about cultivating curiosity and awe in nature, in a time of eco-anxiety and overwhelm. As ecologist Anja Murray opens our eyes to the hidden bounty of the land, sea and sky around us, we head out on a unique journey through the Irish landscape.She explores the joy of foraging, the marvels of Irish birds, the roles of our native trees in environmental regeneration, nature at night and in the city, and much more - including fascinating insights into our ecological past. With beautiful illustrations by Jane Carkill (@lamblittle), Wild Embrace awakens our senses to the everyday environmental wonders within reach, as we set out on a path to empowered change into the future.
Trespasses, Louise Kennedy ( paperback March 2023)
£8.99
One by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat. If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt. There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.
As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like 'petrol bomb' and 'rubber bullets'. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.
Tender and shocking, Trespasses is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times.
The Furies, John Connolly (paperback March 2023)
£8.99
The Furies: mythological snake-haired goddesses of vengeance, pursuers of those who have committed unavenged crimes. Now, private investigator Charlie Parker is drawn into a world of modern furies in two linked stories.
In The Sisters Strange, the return of the criminal Raum Buker to Portland, Maine brings with it chaos and murder, as an act of theft threatens not only to tear apart his own existence but also that of Raum's former lovers, the enigmatic sisters Dolors and Ambar Strange.
And in The Furies Parker finds himself fighting to protect two more women as the city of Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic, but it may be that his clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined . .
From the number one Sunday Times and multi-million-copy bestselling author John Connolly comes the most compelling and unsettling Charlie Parker novel yet. 'Masterly genre-splicing thrillers .
The Last Days of Joy, Anne Tiernan ( pre- order paperback March 2024)
£10.99
EVERY FAMILY HAS SECRETS. SOME ARE JUST BETTER AT HIDING THEIRS... 'You will fall in love with every one of the Tobin family' Edel Coffey
'The Last Days of Joy is a brave and profoundly honest book, written with dark humour' Kathleen McMahon
MEET THE TOBIN FAMILY ... Conor, the high-achieving CEO and media darling walking a fine line between self-promotion and self-destruction Frances, the 'perfect' middle child on the verge of making a mistake that could destroy her marriage. Sinead, the acclaimed writer driven to desperate measures to deliver another guaranteed bestseller to her publisher.
And their mother, Joy,with one last devastating secret to share As Conor, Frances and Sinead gather to say goodbye to Joy, they finally come to understand her past, and the woman she became. The Last Days of Joy is a powerful, unforgettable story about family and dysfunction, heartbreak and healing, and how it's never too late to forgive those you love, and yourself.
