Books

  • Water In The Desert, Fire In The Night

    Water In The Desert, Fire In The Night

    Because the thing about the end of the world is that it happens all the time. Someone leaves and it’s the end of the world. Someone comes back and it’s the end of the world.

    Somebody puts their cock in you and it’s the end of the world. Somebody stops putting their cock in you and it’s the end of the world. Here is a novel about mothering, wolves, bicycles, midwifery, post-apocalyptic feminism, gold, hunger and hope.

    It’s about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and an Irishman who set out from London after the end of the world to cycle to a sanctuary in the southern Alps. It’s about the porousness of the female bodily experience, the challenges of being an empiricist with a sample size of one, what’s worth knowing, what’s worth living, and the necessity of irrationality. It’s about the fact that the world ends all the time, and it’s about what to try to do next.

  • Great Big Beautiful Life

    Great Big Beautiful Life

    18.50

    Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress with more than a few plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

    When Margaret Ives, the famously reclusive heiress, invites eternal optimist Alice Scott to the balmy Little Crescent Island, Alice knows this is it: her big break. And even more rare: a chance to impress her family with a Serious Publication.

    The catch? Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud, Hayden Anderson, is sure of the same thing.

    The proposal? A one-month trial period to unearth the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th Century, after which she’ll choose who’ll tell her story.

    The problem? Margaret is only giving each of them tantalising pieces. Pieces they can’t put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

    And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story – just like the tale Margaret’s spinning – could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad … depending on who’s telling it.

  • The Bureau

    The Bureau

    16.95

    Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her.

    Could she not see there was death about him? Could he not see there was death about her?
    Paddy worked the border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death.

    Everything bootleg and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through.

    There’s illicit cash coming across the border and Brendan’s backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic judges and he doesn’t care about getting caught.

    For the Bureau crew getting caught is only the start of the game.

    Paddy and his associates were a ragged band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She’s cast as a minx, a criminal’s moll but she’s bought a shotgun.

    And she’s bought a grave.

  • Sligo- The Irish Revolution,1912-23

    Sligo- The Irish Revolution,1912-23

    29.95

    Using a wide array of sources and interviews, Michael Farry has produced a balanced, comprehensive and absorbing study of county Sligo from 1912 when the Irish Party controlled all political affairs to 1922–3 when the county saw considerable action during the civil war. This wide-ranging study offers fascinating new insights into the Irish Revolution and details how the county moved from being one of the most loyal to the Irish Party to one of the best-organised Sinn Féin counties. Farry is especially good on how both organised unionism and the strong labour movement in Sligo reacted to the rise of Sinn Féin, its election victory in 1918 and the subsequent Truce, Treaty and civil war. His use of the recently released BMH accounts as well as British military sources results in a richly detailed examination of the IRA campaign and the British reaction. It examines the superior attitude of the IRA towards ‘mere politicians’ during the Truce period and explains why Sligo saw so much conflict during the civil war.

  • Sunrise On The Reaping

    Sunrise On The Reaping

    19.95
    Embargoed until:18 Mar 2025
    Description
      When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honour of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

    When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail.

    But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . .

  • Rot

    Rot

    19.95

    In the 1800s, as Britain became the world’s most powerful industrial empire, Ireland starved. The Great Famine fractured long-held assumptions about political economy and ‘civilisation’, threatening disorder in Britain. Ireland was a laboratory for empire, shaping British ideas about colonisation, population, ecology and work.

    In Rot, Padraic Scanlan reinterprets the history of this time and the result is a revelatory account of Ireland’s Great Famine. In the first half of the nineteenth century, nowhere in Europe – or the world – did the working poor depend as completely on potatoes as in Ireland. To many British observers, potatoes were evidence of a lack of modernity among the Irish.

    However, Ireland before the famine more closely resembled capitalism’s future than its past. While poverty before and during the Great Famine was often blamed on Irish backwardness, it did in fact stem from the British Empire’s embrace of modern capitalism.

    Uncovering the disaster’s roots in Britain’s deep imperial faith in markets and capitalism, Rot reshapes our understanding of the Famine and its tragic legacy.

  • The Paris Express

    The Paris Express

    15.95

    It is 1895, and turn-of-the-century Paris is as chaotic as it is glamorous. Industry and invention have created ever greater wealth and terrible poverty. One autumn morning, an anarchist boards the Granville to Paris express train, determined to make her mark on history.

    Aboard the train are others from across the globe: the railway crew who have built a life together away from their wives, a little boy travelling alone for the first time, an artist far from home, a wealthy statesman and his invalid wife, and a young woman with a secret hidden under her dress.

    All their fates are bound together as the train speeds towards the City of Light …

    Inspired by a famous rail disaster, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride and a literary masterpiece that evokes an era not so different from our own.

  • Dream Count

    Dream Count

    17.95

    Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets.

    Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until – betrayed and brokenhearted – she must turn to the person she thought she needed least.

    Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself.

    And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

    In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

  • Twist

    Twist

    16.95

    Fennell, a journalist, is in pursuit of a story buried at the bottom of the sea: the network of tiny fibre-optic tubes that carry the world’s information across the ocean floor – and what happens when they break. So he has travelled to Cape Town to board the George Lecointe, a cable repair vessel captained by Chief of Mission John Conway. Conway is a talented engineer and fearless freediver – and Fennell is quickly captivated by this mysterious, unnerving man and his beautiful partner, Zanele.

    As the boat embarks along the west coast of Africa, Fennell learns the rhythms of life at sea, and finds his place among the band of drifters who make up the crew. But as the mission falters, tensions simmer – and Conway is thrown into crisis. A terrible, violent tragedy is unfolding in the life he has left behind on land; and, trapped out at sea, it seems as if the vast expanse of the ocean is closing in.

    Then Conway disappears; and Fennell must set out to find him. As taut and propulsive as a thriller, and a timeless exploration of narrative and truth, Twist is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

  • Beidh Tu Alright

    Beidh Tu Alright

    19.95

    Beidh Tú Alright is a powerful nod to the resilience of the human spirit, the importance of cultural heritage, and the joy of lifelong learning. McHugh’s personal story will inspire both those who have yet to start their Irish language journey and those who may have once given up.

  • Three Days in June

    Three Days in June

    16.95
    Description
    ‘A joy to read in a single relaxing afternoon’ JACQUELINE WILSON’Razor sharp on family, love and marriage’ DAVID NICHOLLS’I devoured it in one long lazy afternoon – I laughed and cried’ VICTORIA HISLOP The happily ever after is only part of the story… A funny, touching, hopeful gem about love, marriage and second chances It’s the day before her daughter’s wedding and things are not going well for Gail Baines. First thing, she loses her job – or quits, depending who you ask. Then her ex-husband Max turns up at her door expecting to stay for the festivities.

    He doesn’t even have a suit. Instead, he’s brought memories, a shared sense of humour – and a cat looking for a new home. Just as Gail is wondering what’s next, their daughter Debbie discovers her groom has been keeping a secret…As the big day dawns, the exes just can’t agree on what’s best for Debbie.

    Gail is seriously worried, while Max seems more concerned with whether to opt for the salmon or prime rib at the reception, if they make it that far. The day after the wedding, Gail and Max prepare to go their separate ways again. But all the questions about the future of the happy couple have stirred up the past for Gail.

  • The City Changes Its Face

    The City Changes Its Face

    16.95
    Description
    I’m just not sure how toWhat?Manage all this. All what? Well you and her. It’s 1995.

    Outside the filthy window, the city rushes by. But up in the flat, there is only Eily and Stephen, 19 and 40. Only their bodies, the churning bedsheets.

    Pagodas of takeaway boxes. The total obsession of new love. 18 months later, and the flat feels different.

    Their world is merging with the common place. The scars of the past are intruding. Stray emotions you’ve neglected to secure.

    Ambitions and secrets still to confess. And now Gracie, Stephen’s 17-year-old daughter, is about to arrive. The city changes its face.

  • The Wardrobe Department

    The Wardrobe Department

    16.95
    Description

    FINANCIAL TIMES BEST DEBUT OF 2025

    Mairead works all hours in a run-down West End theatre’s wardrobe department, her whole existence made up of threads and needles, running errands to mend shoes, fixing broken zips and handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the terrible bullying of the show’s producer.

    But, despite her skill and growing experience, half of Mairead remains in her windy, hedge-filled home in Ireland, and the life she abandoned there. In noughties London, she has the potential to be somebody completely new – why, then, does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho, and the wet grass of Leitrim and Donegal, Mairead is caught, running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman she’d hoped to become.

    Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite, The Wardrobe Department is a story about reckoning with the past, finding the courage to change the present – and asking what comes next.

  • Nesting

    Nesting

    15.95
    Description
    ‘Brand-new, urgent and hugely satisfying’ RODDY DOYLE ‘As emotionally charged as it is brutally real. The writing is flawless. I was profoundly moved’ ELAINE FEENEY ‘Will make your blood boil and your heart soar.

    This is an important novel’ CLAIRE KILROY ‘Gorgeous, maddening, thrilling and compassionate’ SHEILA ARMSTRONG ‘Authentic, vivid and important… I read with my heart in my mouth’ UNA MANNION__________________________________________________________________________________An extraordinary and urgent debut by a prize-winning Irish writer, NESTING introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction. On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away.

    Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons.

  • The Cleaner

    The Cleaner

    17.50
    Description

    ‘Domestic noir at its finest.’ I PAPER

    The Cleaner is a masterclass in tension.‘ – JENNIE GODFREY, Sunday Times bestselling author of The List of Suspicious Things

    Beautiful, dark, visceral, truly spellbinding.‘ – ANDREA MARA, Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author

    Taut, twisty and beautifully atmospheric.‘ – KIA ABDULLAH, author of Waterstones Thriller of the Month Those People Next Door

    It’s not dust she’s looking for.
    It’s dirt.

    Esmie is supposed to be invisible. Just a cleaner with a foreign accent that no one quite has time to place.

    Her uniform of leggings and a duster allows her to explore the homes of the wealthy, unseen; an outsider creeping around the edges of privilege.

    But as she sweeps through the exclusive Woodlands gated neighbourhood, cleaning is the last thing on her mind. Treading silently over the polished wooden floorboards and cloud-soft carpets, Esmie gathers up the mess of broken marriages, quiet deceptions and careless failures. She tucks away their fragments, keeping them safe.

  • The Ghosts of Rome

    The Ghosts of Rome

    16.95
    Description

    ‘Thrilling, terrifying and entertaining in equal measure’ Liz Nugent, Number One Bestselling author of Strange Sally Diamond

    February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome.

    Inside the beleaguered city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.

    During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets.

    Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.

    Meanwhile, Hauptmann’s attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him – one where the consequences could be lethal.