Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 151
Irish Fiction
Entertaining Ambrose by Deirdre Purcell (Hardback; 15.99 IEP / 19.50 USD / 11.00 UK) [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.
Three Wise Men by Martina Devlin (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 9.50 USD / 5.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
Gloria, Eimear and Kate have been friends since they were a trio of six-year olds cast as the Three Wise Men in the nativity play. Twenty-five years later, they've left Omagh for Dublin and grown up to be Three Wise Women, all too prone to misuse the gifts they've been given. Eimear's beauty captivates men but robs her of her independence. Kate's dazzling wit blinds her to the consequences of betraying a friend. And Gloria's urge to nurture, thwarted by infertility, threatens to destroy everything she holds dear. Aided and abetted in their misdeeds by the irresistible Jack, philandering poet and seducer extraordinaire, the troika find themselves putting their friendship to a test from which it may never recover.
Nightmusic by Declan Varley (Paperback; 9.95 IEP / 13.50 USD / 8.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
The craic is mighty in Galway. It's summertime, the place is rocking, the drum beats are echoing across the bay and about a mile out, a man's hand is pushing a young woman's head under the water. He holds it there, until the bubbles and the kicking stop. Then he pulls off the tapes and lets the body float away into the dark waters, before he heads home for the cocoa and biscuits with his mother in Shantalla. This novel is a shocking and gruesome story of how evil can prosper unnoticed, when everyone's having fun in Ireland's party city.
Promised Land by Marita Conlon-McKenna (UK)(Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 10.50 USD / 6.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
Inheritance changes everything, as Ella Kennedy soon discovers when her father dies and the hundred-acre farm she has grown up on and run for years in the Wexford countryside is no longer hers. Hurt and angry following a fight with her brother, Ella leaves her home and the people she cares for to join her wild cousin Kitty in Dublin. Exiled in the city, Ella if forced to make a new life for herself like other country girls. She tries to forget the farm, pushing all thoughts of Sean Flanagan, the neighbour she had loved, from her mind. In time she hopes to return to the home she left and find true happiness with a man who wants her for herself, and not what she will bring him.
An Act of Worship by Kate Thompson (Paperback; 14.99 IEP / 18.50 USD / 12.00 UK) [Add To Basket]
Sarah is taking a break from her eco-warrior activities, looking after her sister's wholefood shop in a small west of Ireland town. When a dying calf is found on the local dump, she begins to make some enquiries. Before long, the dark shadow cast by modern beef production begins to emerge in another, more sinister form, and Sarah finds that her path keeps crossing that of the town butcher, Malachy Glynn. Their outlooks on life are clearly polarised, yet they find themselves uneasy allies. Because something even more compelling than the grisly events of the parish is drawing them together. Sarah and Malachy have a lot more in common than they know. This novel vividly explores how the dead and the unborn inform the living, and how life and love can evolve out of the most inauspicious circumstances.
Something Borrowed, Something Blue by Joan O'Neill (UK)(Paperback; 12.99 IEP / 16.00 USD / 10.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
Twenty-seven years old, still single and worse, still living at home with her parents in Dublin: Jenny Joyce wants something new to come into her life. But at her cousin Cathy's wedding in Connemara, she discovers that something old can be even more fun. Hugo Hunter, her first boyfriend, has grown up, unbelievably, to be the sexiest man in Ireland.
A Taste for it by Monica McInerney (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 9.50 USD / 5.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
A trip to Ireland to promote Australian good and wine - Maura Carmody can't wait to get going. A week promoting wine, then three weeks as guest chef in a top cooking school - she is confident she can put Lorikeet hill, her South Australian restaurant-winery, on the map. The wine's shipped, the menus tested - everything has been planned to the last detail. But Maura has not planned for the whirlwind of mishaps, misunderstandings, rivals and revelations that awaits her in Ireland.
Phoenix Short Stories: 2000 edited by David Marcus (Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 11.50 USD / 7.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
This fifth annual anthology of Irish short stories continues to reflect the wide landscape of contemporary Irish fiction, showcasing the best new stories coming out of Ireland. Contributors: Fred Annesley, Harry Clifton, Macdara Doyle, Brendan Glacken, Patricia Hickey, Fred Johnstone, Paul Lenehan, Martin Malone, Aidan Matthews, Fiona O'Connor, Tommy Frank O'Connor, Mary O'Donnell, Coilin O hAodha, Bridget O'Toole, Deirdre Shanahan, Joe Sheerin, and Howard Wright.
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