Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Thank you to everyone who enjoyed reading last year’s post celebrating Irish books! Since readers wanted it last year (and of course, so did I!), I will make this an annual thing!
Are you wearing your favorite green outfit? Do you have your favorite brew of Irish tea right next to you? Here is a list of some great new and upcoming releases from Irish authors that will make you truly appreciate the gifts and talent of the Emerald Isle:
New Releases
- Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women by Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick
- My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connnor
- The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan
- Every Gift a Curse by Caroline O’Donoghue (US Release Date: May 9)
- A Game of Life or Death by Triona Camplbell
- The Home Scar by Kathleen MacMahon
- Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin
- Crookedwood by Liza Costello
Upcoming Books
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
Expected Publication Date: March 21
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe.
But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.
A beautiful, haunting novel, in which nothing is quite as it seems, Old God’s Time is about what we live through, what we live with, and what may survive of us. (Credit: Viking )
The Last Days of Joy by Anne Tiernan
Expected Publication Date: March 30
MEET THE TOBIN FAMILY …
Joy, the complicated, troubled mother
She’s spent her life running from her past while trying to raise her children as best she can.
Conor, the high-achieving eldest child
A high-profile media figure and CEO, he’s walking a fine line between self-promotion and self-detonation.
Frances, the ‘perfect’ middle child
Now a wife and mother, she’s about to make a mistake that could destroy her marriage.
Youngest daughter, Sinead, the acclaimed writer
Wrestling with writer’s block, she resorts to desperate measures to deliver her next bestselling book to her publishers.
When Joy’s children receive the news that she has only days to live, they rush to her side, bringing with them all of the dysfunction and hurt they have been carrying since their childhoods. Each of them is at a crossroads in their lives – but there’s one more secret about their mother they need to learn. Will they finally be able to forgive their mother and, in doing so, face their futures together? (Credit:
Hachette Books Ireland)
Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Expected Publication Date: April 13
What will the end of the world look like?
Will it be an old man slowly turned to gold, flowers raining from the sky, or a hole cut through the wire fencing that keeps the monsters out?
Is it someone you love wearing your face, or a good old fashioned inter-dimensional summoning?
Does it sound like a howl outside the window, or does it look like coming home?
This startling and irresistibly witty collection from the phenomenally talented Moïra Fowley is an exploration of all our darkest impulses and deepest fears. (Credit: Orion Publishing Co)
Perpetual Comedown by Declan Toohey
Expected Publication Date: April 13
As a doctoral student at Trinity College Dublin, Darren Walton is trying to decode an elaborate conspiracy he stumbled across as an undergraduate. To do so he must locate an alternate Ireland named Camland, the existence of which is proven when he discovers a literary journal whose contents mirror his own past. With proof of his wild theories, Darren is sure academic fame is imminent. But for this he is willing to sacrifice not just his sanity and physical safety, but also his relationships with the ones who love him most. (Credit: new Island Books)
The First Move by Jenny Ireland
Expected Publication Date: April 13
Juliet believes girls like her – girls with arthritis – don’t get their own love stories. She exists at the edges of her friends’ social lives, skipping parties to play online chess under a pseudonym with strangers around the world. There, she isn’t just ‘the girl with crutches’.
Ronan is the new kid: good looking, smart, a bad boy plagued by guilt over what happened to his brother Ciaran. Chesslife is his escape.
Juliet thinks Ronan thinks someone like Ronan could never be interested in someone like her – and she wouldn’t want him to be anyway – he always acts like he’s cooler than everyone else.
Little do they know they’ve already discovered each other online, and have more in common than they think . . . (Credit: Penguin Random House Children’s UK)
My Hot Friend by Sophie White
Expected Publication Date: May 4
For very different reasons, Lexi, Claire and Joanne all need new best friends. Unfortunately you’re probably more likely to be attacked by a shark than make new friends in your 30s . . .
Lexi is on top of the world. the podcast she co-hosts with her ride-or-die bestie Amanda is going stratospheric but cracks are appearing and Lexi’s starting to wonder if maybe monetising a friendship isn’t the best idea after all.
Claire’s Whatsapp chat with her school friends is ominously quiet these days, which can only mean one thing: a side group without her. And when her newly-engaged supposed BFF doesn’t even consider her as a bridesmaid, Claire hatches a cunning (if slightly bonkers) plan to find a new best friend and show her old gang what they’re missing.
Joanne’s just had a baby so she’s no longer available for tequila-fuelled nights out — something she has to keep reminding her pals about. She loves her son and her boyfriend Bert (even if his un-steeped porridge bowls are about to send her over the edge) but the loneliness is killing her.
Fate brings Claire, Joanne and Lexi together as they navigate the knotty, joyful and occasionally toxic swamp that is female friendship and try to decide which friends to fight for and which have a sell-by date. (Credit: Hachette Books Ireland)
Service by Sarah Gilmartin
UK and Ireland Expected Publication Date: May 5
The waitress. The chef. The chef’s wife. Three different stories, but which one contains the truth? When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she’s thrust back to the summer she spent as a waitress at his high-end Dublin restaurant. Drawn in by the plush splendour of the dining rooms, the elegance of the food, the wild parties after service, Hannah also remembers the sizzling tension of the kitchens. And how the attention from Daniel morphed from kindness into something darker… His restaurant shuttered, his lawyers breathing down his neck, Daniel is in a state of disbelief. Decades of hard graft, of fighting to earn recognition for his talent – is it all to fall apart because of something he can barely remember? Hiding behind the bedroom curtains from the paparazzi lenses, Julie is raking through more than two decades spent acting the supportive wife, the good mother, and asking herself what it’s all been for. Their three different voices reveal a story of power and abuse, victimhood and complicity. This is a novel about the facades that we maintain, the lies that we tell and the courage it takes to face the truth. (Credit: Pushkin Press)
The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
UK and Ireland Expected Publication Date: May 25
US Expected Publication Date: November 7
Meet the happy couple. Luke and Celine, are in mutual unrequited love with each other, set to marry in a year’s time.
The best man, Archie, is meant to want to move up the corporate ladder and on from his love for Luke; yet he stands where he is, admiring the view.
The bridesmaid, Phoebe, Celine’s sister, has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette and getting to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances.
Then there’s the guest, Vivian, who with the benefit of some emotional distance, methodically observes her friends like ants.
As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after – but does it lie at the end of an aisle? (Credit: Orion Publishing Co)
The DOS and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar
Expected Publication Date: June 6 (UK and Ireland: June 8)
“Welcome to the first ever Junior Irish Baking Show!”
Shireen Malik is still reeling from the breakup with her ex-girlfriend, Chris, when she receives news that she’s been accepted as a contestant on a new televised baking competition show. This is Shireen’s dream come true! Because winning will not only mean prize money, but it will also bring some much-needed attention to You Drive Me Glazy, her parents’ beloved donut shop.
Things get complicated, though, because Chris is also a contestant on the show. Then there’s the very outgoing Niamh, a fellow contestant who is becoming fast friends with Shireen. Things are heating up between them, and not just in the kitchen.
As the competition intensifies, Shireen will have to ignore all these factors and more– including potential sabotage–if she wants a sweet victory! (Credit: Feiwel & Friends)
The Close by Jane Casey
US Expected Publication Date: June 13
At first glance, Jellicoe Close seems to be a perfect suburban street – well-kept houses with pristine lawns, neighbours chatting over garden fences, children playing together.
But there are dark secrets behind the neat front doors, hidden dangers that include a ruthless criminal who will stop at nothing.
It’s up to DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent to uncover the truth. Posing as a couple, they move into the Close, blurring the lines between professional and personal as never before.
And while Maeve and Josh try to gather the evidence they need, they have no idea of the danger they face – because someone in Jellicoe Close has murder on their mind. (Credit: HarperCollins)
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Expected Publication Date: June 27 (UK and Ireland: June 22)
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph. (Credit: Alfred A. Knopf)
Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery
US Expected Publication Date: July 11
New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol, who is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls in Warhol’s employ, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae’s life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
US Expected Publication Date: July 18
Reclusive Sally Diamond causes outrage by trying to incinerate her dead father. Now she’s the center of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.
But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world, and why does he call her Mary? And why does her new neighbor seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged… (Credit: Gallery/Scout Press)
The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard
Expected Publication Date: August 1 (UK and Ireland: August 3)
‘You’d think they’d do something about the taxi shortage, ‘ he says. ‘Especially with the missing women.’
Stranded on a dark road in the middle of the night, a young woman accepts a lift from a passing stranger. It’s the nightmare scenario that every girl is warned about, and she knows the dangers all too well – but what other choice does she have?
As they drive, she alternates between fear and relief – one moment thinking he is just a good man doing a good thing, the next convinced he’s a monster. But when he delivers her safely to her destination, she realizes her fears were unfounded.
And her heart sinks. Because a monster is what she’s looking for.
She’ll try again tomorrow night. But will the man who took her sister take the bait? (Credit: Blackstone Publishing)
Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue
Expected Publication Date: August 29 (UK and Ireland: August 24)
Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister’s five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.
Emotionally intense, psychologically compelling, and deeply researched, Learned by Heart is an extraordinary work of fiction by one of the world’s greatest storytellers. Full of passion and heartbreak, the tangled lives of Anne Lister and Eliza Raine form a love story for the ages. (Credit: Little Brown and Company)
Disobedient Bodies by Emma Dabiri
Expected Publication Date: October 26
Body hair. “Fat” thighs. Something’s always “too big” or “too small”. What part of your beautiful self were you taught to hate?
We spend a lot of time hiding our “defects”, according to society’s ideals of beauty. Ideals that are often tyrannical, commercially entangled, homogenizing and imposed upon us by oppressive systems that are further strengthened by our conditioned self loathing.
This book will explore how to unpack, process, rebel and subvert – offering alternative ways of seeing beauty, drawing on other cultures, worldviews, times, places, and looking beyond the capitalist model – to find the inherent joy in our disobedient bodies. (Credit: Profile Books Ltd)
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