Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 180
New Irish Fiction
Running Before Daybreak by Terry Prone
Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 12.00 USD / 8.50 UK / 12.70 EURO; Marino, 372 pages [Add To Basket]This novel is a witty, wise and profoundly moving story of a woman who runs away from her life. Cassie Browne has it all: married to a man who is famous, funny and rich, she is also a successful cartoonist and adores the baby she never planned to have. Then she loses not only the happiness from her life, but her belief in happiness itself. Her is car is found at the water's edge … so why does her best friend believe she is still alive, and why is one man determined to find her, if it takes him the rest of his life? Cassie Browne's story - with its surprising turns of fortune - enthralls and delights!
Spilt Milk by Lana Citron
Hardback; 12.99 IEP / 15.50 USD / 10.99 UK / 16.50 EURO; TownHouse; 234 pages [Add To Basket]Dubliner Murrey Pogue arrives in Chicago determined to forget her tortured past. Reeling from the disastrous adventures that punctuate her off-beat world (populated by petty thieves and pimps, gun-toting drug addicts and crazed religious zealots), her fresh hope arrives in the form of the suave, sophisticated Manfredi. The unlikely couple become entangled in a passionate affair more intense than either has ever known. But distance along cannot obliterate the pain of Murrey's former live, and she is drawn back to Ireland and the mother she left behind in a bid to understand the childhood tragedy that overshadows her life. But in deserting her new-found life and love, has Murrey come to terms with her past, only to say farewell to future happiness?
Said & Done by Annie Sparrow
Paperback; 5.99 IEP / 7.00 USD / 5.00 UK / 7.60 EURO; Town House, 358 pages [Add To Basket]Working as a legal secretary and swapping office gossip at the coffee machine hasn't exactly prepared Emma for the high life. Neither has for that matter, being married to Tony. Moving to Dublin to help open a new office seems the perfect way to break the routine. If only the deal didn't involve working alongside the acerbic Jack. When Emma finds herself in a new city with a man looking newer by the day, things suddenly get very interesting indeed. After all is said and done, there's only one problem: she has to go home to England … and to Tony.
No Bones by Anna Burns
Large Paperback; 12.50 IEP / 15.00 USD / 10.50 UK / 16.10 EURO; HarperCollins, 321 pages [Add To Basket]Amelia Lovett is an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances. Or maybe just an extraordinary girl in ordinary circumstances. It is hard to tell. It's hard to tell anything when ordinary is midnight raids on your home; ordinary is ten-year-olds collecting rubber bullets as keepsakes; ordinary is schoolgirls bringing guns into schoolyards. Living on an unremarkable street in a town where violence is absurdly ordinary is so hard that all you can do is laugh - or die. If Amelia is not only to survive but to live, it will be a miracle, a miracle no religion in that city is capable of inducing or sanctioning. But it could happen - it at a price.
The Body Rock by K.T. McCaffrey
Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 8.00 USD / 6.00 UK / 8.90 EURO; Marino, 480 pages [Add To Basket]A mysterious suicide in Dublin brings investigative reporter Emma Boylan home from her honeymoon to try to unravel the truth about hotel magnate Todd Wilson and his twisted network of friends and family. Todd's wife, Maeve, is the much-admired president of a national charity group; Ethel is the Wilsons' estranged nanny; Fergus is Maeve's handsome and enigmatic colleague - who knows the truth? In this gripping thriller, Emma traces a thread of betrayal and murder to find out why the Wilson's world is falling apart and who's behind it all. But as she closes in on the truth, she is drawn into a web of lies until, fearing for her life, she realises there's no one she can trust with the truth.
Unweaving the Thread by Monica Tracey
Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 9.50 USD / 6.50 UK / 10.20 EURO; Marino, 318 pages [Add To Basket]Mary Ann Ward - or Marianne Reed, as she is known to her husband Alan and children in her Muswell Hill home in London - has come back to her mother's house in Country Antrim at the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Her instinctive race for home with her new baby has been triggered by the discovery that Alan, who wanted her to terminate her pregnancy, has been having an affair with her best friend. As she tries to settle in a vastly altered Northern Ireland and come again to terms with her loving but relentlessly driven mother she relives a life less ordinary. And Mary Ann herself, tender, passionate, and vulnerable, must face up to the ghosts of her own past before she finds peace.
The Month of the Leopard by James Harland
Large Paperback; 14.00 IEP / 16.50 USD / 11.00 UK / 17.80 EURO, Simon & Schuster, 345 pages [Add To Basket]A woman's disappearance, the drop in value of an Eastern European currency and a cold yet fanatical financier. How do these three things relate to each other - and to the destruction of the world's financial markets? Tom Bracewell is an economist for an investment bank - when he comes home to find his Estonian wife, Tatyana, has vanished, leaving him a note, his world turned upside down. As Tom investigates Tatyana's disappearance, he comes to wonder if he ever knew his wife - there are trips to Europe and massive Swiss bank accounts of which he had no knowledge. This thriller, written by a leading financial journalist, mixes high adventure with the fascinating machinations of the financial markets.
Entertaining Ambrose by Deirdre Purcell
Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 8.00 USD / 6.00 UK / 8.90 EURO; Town House, 424 pages [Add To Basket]This novel is the story of the lovable May who bears life's burdens so lightly, tending to others' needs before her own. But when her criminal husband absconds, leaving orders he should not be contacted, for once she decides to fight. Step by step, through the small comedies and grisly tragedies that follow, she is accompanied by Ambrose, a quixotic but protective angel who has an agenda of his own, yet whose subtle intervention proves pivotal. Witty and finely observed, this is a spell-binding tale of a very unusual friendship and of a courageous and unique woman.
The Body Rock by K.T. McCaffrey
Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 8.00 USD / 6.00 UK / 8.90 EURO, Marino Press, 480 pages [Add To Basket]A mysterious suicide in Dublin brings investigative reporter Emma Boylan home from her long honeymoon to try to unravel the truth about hotel magnate Todd Wilson and his twisted network of friends and family. But who knows the truth? Todd's wife, Maeve, the much-admired president of a national charity group? Ethel, the Wilsons' estranged nanny? Fergus, Maeve's handsome and enigmatic colleague? In this gripping thriller, Emma traces a thread of betrayal and murder to find out why the Wilson's world is falling apart and who is behind it all.
Frames: Athena, The Book of Evidence and Ghosts by John Banville
Paperback; 11.20 IEP / 14.00 USD / 9.00 UK / 14.40 EURO; Picador, 617 pages [Add To Basket]This collection of three interlocked novels displays one of Ireland's preminent writers at the height of his powers. In The Book of Evidence, Freddie Montgomery has committed two crimes. He stole a Dutch master from a wealthy family friend, and he murdered the chambermaid who caught him in the act. The latter act made perfect sense to him, but his motives for the former are rather mystifying. In Ghosts, Freddie, having served his time in prison, has come to rest on a sparsely populated island with only the enigmatic Professor Silas Kreutznaer and his laconic companion, Licht, for company. A sort of uneasy calm is operating in this world, but then a party of castaways arrives with disquieting results. And in Athena, Morrow is at a loose end when, on two occasions, he is beckoned up the stairs of an empty Dublin house. The first time this happens he is offered a dubious kind of work. The second time is even stranger.
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