Recent Irish Fiction: 2021

"August, 1856. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens are spending the summer at Knebworth House, the magnificent Hertfordshire home of fellow writer Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, where they are putting on a charity performance of one of Lord Edward's most successful plays, The Lady of Lyon. But the dress rehearsal is disrupted by the discovery of a body lying in the centre of the stage, shot to death. With everyone involved in the play coming under suspicion,...

"Between training the new town garda and trying to set a wedding date with her fiancé, Macdara Flannery, Siobhán is feeling a bit overwhelmed. But an author event at the new bookstore featuring Irish writers taking up residency in Kilbane offers a welcome distraction. One author, Deirdre Walsh, spends more time complaining about the unfairness of the publishing industry and megastar bestselling authors like Nessa Lamb instead of her own body of...

"Dublin, 1904. Nora Barnacle, from Galway, works as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. Her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland. As their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe. She believes...

"Jack Taylor has finally escaped his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children seen tending to him are...

After discovering that her married lover has been killed in an accident, estate lawyer Ana Kelly, alone and undone, seeks friendship with the person who she once thought of as her adversary and opposite, but who is now the only one who shares her pain--Rebecca, her lover's widow.

Distance makes no difference to love... Eager to cheer up her recently widowed gran, Cassie Fitzgerald, visiting from Canada, persuades Lissbeg Library to set up a Skype book club, linking readers on Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula with the US town of Resolve, home to generations of Finfarran emigrants. But when the club decides to read a detective novel, old conflicts on both sides of the ocean are exposed and hidden love affairs come to light. As...

Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family. The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford—flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to identify the murderer—faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily accumulating snow to the culture...

Enduring privation when Japan declares war on England, a teacher at a British missionary school in China is sent to a distant internment camp, where she provides support and instruction to incarcerated children taken from their parents. China, December 1941. Elspeth Kent left England for a teaching post at a missionary school in northern China. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School, protected by her British status. When...

"The Husband's Secret meets Big Little Lies in this story of three women looking for a fresh start, and the love affairs, rivalries, and scandals found on the other side of the white picket fence."-- "Martha used to be a force of nature: calm, collected, and in charge. But since moving her husband and two daughters to Dublin under sudden and mysterious circumstances, she can't seem to find her footing. Robin was the "it" girl in school, destined...

Adam and Farai are an interracial couple that have been together for two years. Farai has finally persuaded Adam to introduce her to his parents, but the visit to the in-laws turns out to be a horrible experience for Farai. Several situations during the introductory dinner make her feel uneasy and ostracised. When confronted about this experience Adam tries to play down the whole situation and does not show any understanding for his partner's concern....