Best of
Irish-Literature

2020

A Light That Never Goes Out: A Memoir


Keelin Shanley - 2020
    But a light so bright never really goes out, especially since, in her last few months, Keelin wrote a fantastic record of her life.Charting the twists and turns of both a remarkable career as an investigative journalist and a lengthy battle with cancer, in A Light That Never Goes Out Keelin reveals with real honesty what it's like to keep living your life and career - right up to becoming a co-anchor of RT�'s Six One News - while dealing with the challenges of cancer treatment.Written with the help of Alison Walsh and completed posthumously by Keelin's husband Conor Ferguson, A Light That Never Goes Out is a remarkable story of courage and resilience and a memorable reflection on how to live well, no matter what you're facing.

Intimacies


Lucy Caldwell - 2020
    From a Belfast student ordering illegal drugs online to end an unwanted pregnancy to a young mother's brush with mortality; from a Christmas Eve walking the city centre streets when everything seems possible, to a night flight from Canada which could change a life irrevocably, these are stories of love, loss and exile, of new beginnings and lives lived away from 'home'.Taking in, too, the lives of other women who could be guiding lights - from Monica Lewinsky to Caroline Norton to Sinéad O'Connor - Intimacies offers keenly felt and subtly revealing insights into the heartbreak and hope of modern life.

Why The Moon Travels


Oein DeBharduin - 2020
    Brave vixens, prophetic owls and stalwart horses live alongside the human characters as guides, protectors, friends and foes while spirits, giants and fairies blur the lines between this world and the otherworld. Collected by Oein DeBhairduin throughout his childhood, retold in his lyrical style, and beautifully illustrated by Leanne McDonagh.

Savage Her Reply


Deirdre Sullivan - 2020
    A retelling of the favourite Irish fairytale The Children of Lir. Aife marries Lir, a king with four children by his previous wife. Jealous of his affection for his children, the witch Aife turns them into swans for 900 years. Retold through the voice of Aife, Savage Her Reply is unsettling and dark, feminist and fierce, yet nuanced in its exploration of the guilt of a complex character. Voiced in Sullivan's trademark rich, lyrical prose as developed in Tangleweed and Brine - the multiple award-winner which established Sullivan as the queen of witchy YA. Another dark & witchy feminist fairytale from the author of Tangleweed and Brine

The Fitzgeralds of Dublin Series: Books 1 - 3


Lorna Peel - 2020
    Tired of treating rich hypochondriacs, Dr Will Fitzgerald left his father’s medical practice and his home on Merrion Square to live and practice medicine in the Liberties. His parents were appalled and his fiancée broke off their engagement. But when Will spends a night in a brothel on the eve of his best friend’s wedding, little does he know that the scarred and disgraced young woman he meets there will alter the course of his life.Isobel Stevens was schooled to be a lady, but a seduction put an end to all her father’s hopes for her. Disowned, she left Co Galway for Dublin and fell into prostitution. On the advice of a handsome young doctor, she leaves the brothel and enters domestic service. But can Isobel escape her past and adapt to life and the chance of love on Merrion Square? Or will she always be seen as a scarlet woman?Please note that this novel contains sexually explicit and sensitive content and is intended for readers aged eighteen and over.A Suitable Wife: The Fitzgeralds of Dublin Book 2Dublin, Ireland, 1881. Will and Isobel Fitzgerald settle into number 30 Fitzwilliam Square, a home they could once only have dreamed of. A baby is on the way, Will takes over the Merrion Street Upper medical practice from his father and they are financially secure. But when Will is handed a letter from his elder brother, Edward, stationed with the army in India, the revelations it contains only serves to further alienate Will from his father.Isobel is eager to adapt to married life on Fitzwilliam Square but soon realises her past can never be laid to rest. The night she met Will in a brothel on the eve of his best friend’s wedding has devastating and far-reaching consequences which will change the lives of the Fitzgerald family forever.A Discarded Son: The Fitzgeralds of Dublin Book 3Dublin, Ireland, 1881. Isobel Fitzgerald’s mother, Martha, marries solicitor James Ellison but an unexpected guest overshadows their wedding day. Martha’s father is dying and he is determined to clear his conscience before it is too late. Lewis Greene’s confession ensures the Ellisons’ expectation of a quiet married life is gone and that Isobel’s elder brother, Alfie Stevens, will be the recipient of an unwelcome inheritance.When a bewildering engagement notice is published in The Irish Times, the name of one of the persons concerned sends Will and Isobel on a race against time across Dublin and forces them to break a promise and reveal a closely guarded secret.

A Heart To Survive: first Novel in the Collingwood Series


George Fillis - 2020
    Book one in a series that takes readers on an epic journey into the historical past of two nations divided by culture and continents.Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

The Art of the Glimpse


Sinéad Gleeson - 2020
    Sinead Gleeson brings together stories ranging from the sublime to the downright bizarre, from classics to the new generation of writers, and from well known names to previously unpublished talent.The collection paints a tremendous spectrum of experience: the story of a prank come good by Bram Stoker; Sally Rooney on the love languages of the new generation; Donal Ryan on the pains of ageing; Edna O'Brien on political entanglements; James Joyce on losing a loved one; and the internal monologue of a coma sufferer by Marian Keyes.List of contributing authors:Samuel Beckett, Sally Rooney, Melatu Uche Okirie, William Trevor, Marian Keyes, Kevin Barry, Edna O'Brien, Claire-Louise Bennett, Sheridan Le Fanu, Danielle McLaughlin, Mairtin O Cathain, Frances Molloy, Blindboy Boatclub, Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O'Connor, Chiamaka Emyi-Amadi, John McGahern, Anne Enright, Mike McCormack, Maeve Brennan, Oein de Bhairduin, Eimear McBride, Sean O Faolain, Cathy Sweeney.

Irish Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends (Scholastic Classics)


Kieran Fanning - 2020
    Enjoy the rich mythical history of Ireland from the arrival of the Tuatha De Danann on the island and their great battles with the Fomorians, right up to the modern day fairy tales of Irish storytelling. Including the Ulster Cycle, The Fenian Cycle and featuring heroes such as Cúchulainn and Fionn Mac Cumhaill and many traditional favourites such as The Children of Lir.

Beyond the Horizon


Eoin Lane - 2020
    The artist turns his head slightly. The light catches his brow and his silver-white hair. She snaps. He is lit like a Vermeer.Ireland. County Wicklow, 1951. A father and son go swimming in the sea. The waves crash. The wind rises. Only one comes back—Colin, aged six. His mother, Eileen, runs to seek help, but this is a tragedy that will haunt them forever. Colin won’t speak a word. He is mute and struggling to cope. But Eileen can see he has a talent for painting. She shows him his father’s artwork and gives him a print of a Paul Henry landscape, and slowly, with her encouragement, he begins to follow his dream.Years later on Inishbofin island off the west coast of Ireland, out walking with his dog on the sand, Colin meets Laura, a young woman on holiday, and a tentative friendship starts to develop. Gradually his past comes to life in a story filled with love and frustration, loss and betrayal, but above all with the passion he has held through his life for the light in the sea and the sky and his search for that distant, elusive shore where the sky sweeps down to the water.One man. The sea. One painting.

The Wild Laughter


Caoilinn Hughes - 2020
    Brothers Hart and Cormac Black are waking up to a very different Ireland – one that widens the chasm between them and brings their beloved father to his knees. Facing a devastating choice that risks their livelihood, if not their lives, their biggest danger comes when there is nothing to lose. A sharp snapshot of a family and a nation suddenly unmoored, this epic-in-miniature explores cowardice and sacrifice, faith rewarded and abandoned, the stories we tell ourselves and the ones we resist. Hilarious, poignant and utterly fresh, The Wild Laughter cements Caoilinn Hughes' position as one of Ireland's most audacious, nuanced and insightful young writers.

Strange Flowers


Donal Ryan - 2020
    Slowly her parents, Paddy and Kit, begin to accept that she’s gone forever. But she returns, changed, and with a few surprises for her family and neighbours.Nothing is ever the same again for the Gladneys, who learn that fate cares little for duty, that life rarely conforms to expectation, that God can’t be relied upon to heed any prayer.A story of exile and return, of loss and discovery, of retreat from grief and the saving power of love.

A Quiet Education: Challenging the Extrovert Ideal in our Schools


Jamie Thom - 2020
    

Tell Me The Truth About Loss: A Psychologist’s Personal Story of Loss, Grief and Finding Hope


Niamh Fitzpatrick - 2020
    Soon afterwards, Niamh’s marriage disintegrated, and she feared she would lose her house. Life as she knew it had ended and the loss she suffered was staggering.A psychologist for many years, Niamh’s job was to guide clients through the worst times in their lives. Drawing on everything she learned, first to survive and then, in time, to begin to thrive, Tell Me the Truth about Loss is a psychologist’s journey through loss, grief and the worst of times, while finding hope along the way.A beautiful book for when life isn’t what you expect it to be.

Sinder (Diabhal, #2)


Kathleen Kaufman - 2020
    As her younger brother, Alan, turns eighteen, Ceit enacts a plan to end the Society for good. And in doing so, releasing Alan from what she sees increasingly as a toxic and antiquated way of life as well as freeing herself from her mortal ties to the human realm.In 1924, Ainsley Robertson lives in a secluded community outside of Cork, led by her father, an abusive and cruel ceannaire. Ainsley’s story opens with her expecting a baby in a world where being an unwed mother is a criminal act. Ainsley grows to realize her own gifts and connection to the world of the fae as she navigates a world dominated by dogma and oppression. As the sparks of what will become the Society grow to a flame, Ainsley becomes the Matrarc of her people, leading them to a new world, and a new tradition.

Crazy For You


Domhnall O'Donoghue - 2020
    It's witty and charming and very, very funny' – Esther McCarthy, The Irish Examiner'Assured, astute and wickedly funny, Domhnall's latest book will leave you open-mouthed and satisfyingly unsettled' - Aine Toner, editor of Woman's Way"A heady, funny thriller, Crazy For You is O'Donoghue's best novel yet" - Anne Cunningham, The Meath Chronicle***When Clooney Coyle promises Vonnie Gallagher they'll be friends for life, he has no idea what he's letting himself in for. The lonely and eccentric Vonnie quickly becomes obsessed with the kind-hearted but insecure actor, and her misguided crush soon develops into something much more sinister, which leaves Clooney's career in tatters. But when fate takes a strange turn and elevates the pair into an overnight celebrity couple, Clooney must decide whether to embrace the fame he has longed for since childhood or end the ridiculous charade before Vonnie's jealous - and murderous - inclinations spiral out of control.