The Ballad of Ronan McCoy

Irish Times Best Fiction of 2026 ‘A painfully optimistic book that does the favour of making you laugh as it breaks your heart’ Kenneth Branagh’A tender, elegant novel about the beauty and importance of friendship…One of the most moving books I’ve read in some time’ John Boyne***A tender coming-of-age story about friendship, first love, loss, and facing the ultimate question: who am I going to be? For fans of Douglas Stuart, Michael Magee, David Nicholls and Andrew O’HaganBrendan’s best friend, his only friend, is Ronan McCoy. He knows things about Brendan that no one else does: about his job washing the cars at Feeney’s Funeral Home, about the loneliness he sometimes feels even when surrounded by hundreds of others at school. But Brendan never told Ronan about the dark feeling that sits at the bottom of his stomach, the feeling that tells him something bad is coming.