Irish Fiction

Showing 17–32 of 111 results

Cameo
€17.95
‘A writer living and thinking his way to the frontiers of human society’ Spectator

Cameo is the life story of invented Irish novelist Ren Duka, who has unexpected, runaway international success with a prolific series of autofictional novels.

What begins as a playful satire on literary ambition and the chaos of our times expands into a dazzling, polyphonic odyssey that challenges the border between fiction and reality.

As the Ren Duka novels race outwards in widening circles of influence, we encounter Dina Tatangelo, cult novelist of the New York underworld; a Japanese manga artist whose work eerily affects his family life; a grizzled Dublin taxi driver who just might ferry his passengers between worlds; a film-star facing public disgrace; and Rob Doyle, an author enduring a psychic and ontological crisis.

Cameo is at once a metaphysical architecture of the imagination, a human comedy full of unruly passions, and a self-portrait across multiple dimensions.

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Camino Royale
€14.95
‘The name’s O’Carroll-Kelly. Ross O’Carroll-Kelly.’As the great James Bond said, ‘History isn’t kind to men who play God.’ How right the dude ended up being. My secret double-life was finally catching up with me.

Sorcha wanted a divorce. I was facing jail time for taking my orse out in a pub in Cork. And there was a very good chance that my sister-in-law’s surrogate baby was actually mine? One by one, all of the goys turned their backs on me.

Then came an unexpected plot twist. From beyond the grave, Fr Fehily – the M and the Q to our Leinster Schools Senior Cup-winning team – sent us all on one final mission . . . To walk the Camino – or die trying! It’s, like, double oh fock!

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Close to Home
€16.95
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 surviveSean’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.

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Conversation With The Sea
€17.95
Description

‘Truly a book for our time’ PAUL LYNCHFROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE SPECKLED PEOPLEFleeing his failed marriage in Berlin, Lukas Dorn revisits the West of Ireland, the place of his honeymoon two decades earlier. While his former wife is being cancelled at work and his daughter is arrested at a street protest, he tries to make sense of his broken life with a journal as his sole companion. His inherited memory of the Nazi Holocaust comes face to face with the present when he meets a refugee from a recent warzone.

As Lukas communes with the elements in this wild coastal place, he is forced into a confrontation with the past that will carry him to the edge of existence. Conversation with the Sea speaks with heart-rending tenderness to the present moment, as it explores truth, illusion and the deadly silencing of war in a captivating tale of love in a time of displacement. ‘Told with Hamilton’s signature purity of tone, an epic story about how love and history intersect.’ ANNE ENRIGHT’I don’t think I’ve ever read a book as wise, or as moving.

I will treasure it forever.’ DONAL RYAN’Hypnotic, passionate, urgent … Hamilton cuts a clean line to the truth of our mindless moment.’ PAUL LYNCH

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Devotions
€17.95
‘Exhilarating, devastating, comforting, essential.’ CLAIRE KILROY’These are stories which sing off the page.’ JAN CARSON’Powerful, compelling and richly crafted.’ MARY COSTELLO’Profoundly intimate.’ TAHMIMA ANAMThe highly-anticipated new collection from the BBC National Short Story Award-winning author of Multitudes, Intimacies and Openings’There must be moments when we let go – let go of all that we do, all that we are.’A young Belfast theatre troupe brings its experimental production of Hamlet to New York. On a night-flight, travelling with a violin older than the United States, a professional musician slips through time. A man who loses all he thought he had, and finds himself haunted by all he never will, comes to a painful new understanding of what it might mean to love.

Transporting and profound, these are stories of love, grief, longing, of new beginnings, and the ways we find shelter in each other. ‘One of our best short story writers.’ THE TIMES'[Caldwell] holds the reader right up against the tender humanity of her characters.’ EIMEAR McBRIDE’A next-level author of short stories.’ THE HERALD

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Earth
€15.95
From million-copy-bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected. It’s the tabloid sensation of the year: two well-known footballers standing in the dock, charged with sexual assault, a series of vile text messages pointing towards their guilt. As the trial unfolds, Evan Keogh reflects on the events that have led him to this moment.

Since leaving his island home, his life has been a lie on many levels. He’s a talented footballer who wanted to be an artist. A gay man in a sport that rejects diversity.

A defendant whose knowledge of what took place on that fateful night threatens more than just his freedom or career. The jury will deliver a verdict but, before they do, Evan must judge for himself whether the man he has become is the man he wanted to be.

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Everything that is Beautiful
€16.95
‘I absolutely loved it. So realistic about the complexity of loving people who will break our hearts’Marian KeyesFROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF SNOWFLAKE – AN UNFORGETTABLE STORY OF TWO FAMILIES RIVEN BY ONE GREAT SECRET. For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family.

Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate – all the while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player. Now, following a distressing series of events, the family ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter who can’t understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago.

Meanwhile, Helen Foley is trying her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of women she went to school with. In her life in Belfast, Kate is attempting to hold down a job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family’s secrets, and feeling like she is the one to blame. As a family wedding looms, and the women find themselves face to face, the knotty love that still binds Niamh, Helen and Kate might just bring them back together again.

Told through the perspectives of three very different women, Everything That Is Beautiful unfolds the story of one complicated family in startlingly honest prose. By turns funny and deeply moving, and with unmatched emotional intelligence, this is an unforgettable story of love and family, heartbreak and hope – and who we might become after we pick up the pieces. Praise for Everything That Is Beautiful’Vivid and compelling.

A big-hearted, immersive novel about the complex bonds of family and friendships’ Roisin O’Donnell, award-winning author of NESTING’I truly loved it. Nealon has such a talent for conveying the intimate and devastating multitudes of family life. Bittersweet, wise, full of humour and heart’ Grainne O’Hare, author of THIRST TRAP ‘Intimate and panoramic, tender-hearted and clear-eyed, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny.

A book you’ll read and love, then immediately buy for those you love’ Colin Walsh, number 1 bestselling author of KALA’A deeply moving exploration of all the joys and pains of living in community. Beautifully written, funny, emotionally complex and always quietly hopeful. I loved it’ Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, award-winning author of ORDINARY SAINTS’I BLOODY LOVED IT.

Complicated families, gorgeous fully- realised characters, heartbreak and laughter’ Jennie Godfrey, bestselling author of THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS’Fresh and engaging . . .

Her characters are alive and real, and the familial relationships, with all their petty cruelties and their bumbling acts of love, are so acutely observed’ Claire Gleeson, author of SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS’Wrought with tension, humour, irreverence and warmth. The Foleys will inhabit your heart long after the last page’ Charleen Hurtubise, author of SAOIRSE——————————————————-From the acclaimed author of SNOWFLAKE *A number one international bestseller*Winner of Newcomer of the Year at the AN Post Irish Book Awards*A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime pick*Chosen as the official read of the One Dublin One Book campaign’Wonderful and mad’ Roddy Doyle’Sparks with tender charm and humour . .

. Fresh, bleakly funny’ Sunday Times’Tender, laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving’ Louise O’Neill

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Exciting Times
€10.95
Description
‘The book of the summer … Kept me rapt until the final page’ THE TIMES’A sharp, smart, witty modern love story. I loved it’ David Nicholls, author of ONE DAY’More than lives up to the hype …

Likely to fill the Sally-Rooney-shaped hole in many readers’ lives’ IRISH TIMES’Droll, shrewd and unafraid – a winning debut’ Hilary Mantel, author of WOLF HALL’I’ve been pushing Exciting Times on everyone I know. Some of Dolan’s pithy observations of her characters are the best I’ve read since Edward St Aubyn’ OBSERVER’A frankly sensational book’ Pandora Sykes on THE HIGH LOW’In the tradition of Dorothy Parker, Joan Rivers and Nora Ephron … I found myself purring with pleasure.

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Falling Animals
€15.50
On 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.

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Forever Home
€12.50
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.

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Four Night Seas
€15.95
Description

Set across liminal landscapes, this collection of fourteen stories from award-winning author Niamh Mac Cabe feature characters navigating emotional or existential thresholds—grieving, seeking meaning, or reconciling with the past. Whether it is a reclusive sculptor haunted by guilt, a lost child drawing maps in the sand, or a greyhound silently shadowing a man to a mountain lake, Mac Cabe’s lyrical prose and inventive narrative structures evoke an eerie, tender intimacy. Rich and atmospheric, exploring themes of memory, solitude, loss, and the mysterious rhythms of nature and human connection, this collection blurs the line between the internal and external world, and invites us into spaces of beauty, melancholy and subtle transformation. Four Night Seas marks the arrival of a vital new voice in Irish writing.

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Frankie
€15.95
The brand-new novel from million-copy bestseller and national treasure Graham Norton – a dazzling, decades-sweeping story about love, bravery and what it means to live a significant life.

Always on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie Howe was never quite sure enough of herself to take centre stage – after all, life had already judged her harshly. Now old, Frankie finds it easier to forget the life that came before. Then Damian, a young Irish carer, arrives at her London flat, there to keep an eye on her as she recovers from a fall.

A memory is sparked, and the past crackles into life as Damian listens to the story Frankie has kept stored away all these years. Travelling from post-war Ireland to 1960s New York – a city full of art, larger than life characters and turmoil – Frankie shares a world in which friendship and chance encounters collide. A place where, for a while, life blazes with an intensity that can’t last but will perhaps live on in other ways and in other people.

But as Frankie’s past slowly emerges, her spirit and endurance are revealed as undeniable . . .

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Freckles
€12.95
Five people. Five chances. One woman’s search for happiness. Allegra Bird’s arms are scattered with freckles, a gift from her beloved father.

But despite her nickname, Freckles has never been able to join all the dots. So when a stranger tells her that everyone is the average of the five people they spend the most time with, it opens up something deep inside. The trouble is, Freckles doesn’t know if she has five people. And if not, what does that say about her? She’s left her unconventional father and her friends behind for a bold new life in Dublin, but she’s still an outsider. Now, in a quest to understand, she must find not one but five people who shape her – and who will determine her future. Told in Allegra’s vivid, original voice, moving from modern Dublin to the fierce Atlantic coast, this is an unforgettable story of human connection, of friendship, and of growing into your own skin.

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Frida Slattery as Herself
€16.95
When Frida Slattery and John Reddan meet in a Dublin pub in 2005, neither can imagine how they will come to shape and define each other’s lives.

Frida is struggling to launch her acting career, while John is already gaining a name for himself as a director. From the first they see in each other potential and the chance to create work that matters, though the lines between collaboration and exploitation, friendship and desire will prove dangerously slippery.

With the financial crisis looming, the next 16 years takes them from Dublin to London, via New York and LA, and through success and disappointment, joy and heartbreak.

Their connection is tested and stretched to the point of rupture, but something remains that outlasts both their work and their own shifting perceptions.

FRIDA SLATTERY AS HERSELF is an unforgettable story of love, artistic collaboration, and two people coming of age, together and apart.

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Frogs for Watchdogs
€16.95
Description

After years of moving from place to place, a young family finds shelter in an isolated house in the Irish countryside. Their father is missing, Mum is a healer and B a formidable big sister. In his strange new territory, a wild little boy gives voice to his experience.

Jerry Drain, a local famer, is stealing hay from the barn, someone is making nasty phone calls to the house at night and darkness is gathering at the edges of their lives. With his ferocious imagination the boy will do everything in his power to protect his family. But Jerry will not go away and Mum seems to be falling under his spell.

It will be a year of major wins and baffling defeats for the boy, as Jerry’s true nature insists on revealing itself. Dark, funny, tender and raw, Frogs for Watchdogs thrums with the intensity of childhood. Above all, it is an ode to the blended family: the bewildering joy, wary safety and profound new bonds of love.

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Getting The Electric
€17.95
‘Louise Hegarty can do anything. She’s fearless. And I loved these playful, clever, perfect stories’ – MARIANA ENRIQUEZ’Phenomenally talented’ – THE SUNDAY TIMES’Borges for the CMAT generation’ – THE IRISH TIMESAre you ready to play?Have you ever found yourself doom-scrolling, worrying about that weird pain in your leg, only to have your plans for the day completely trashed by the appearance of a literal axe-wielding troll?What about that time you came across a perfect double of yourself in the street?Or the gorilla suit you put on one day only for it to fuse with your skin?When those children went missing from your village, did you know for sure it was the electricity that took them?And down in the basement of your ancestral family home, what is it that’s making that THUMP .

. . THUMP .

. . THUMP .

. . Bold, funny, and wild, Louise Hegarty’s debut collection will turn you upside down and inside out, if it doesn’t take you apart completely.

* * * * *PRAISE FOR FAIR PLAY‘A treat . . .

Takes on the biggest questions of life and death’ – Paul Murray‘Dazzling’ – Colin Walsh‘Brilliant’ – The Times‘Ingenious’ – The Telegraph‘Terrific’ – The New York Times‘Heartbreaking’ – The Guardian‘Sally Rooney meets The Secret History’ – The Sunday Times

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