Exciting New Release from Donal Ryan

Donal’s new novel, Where Are the Kings, was published in Ireland/UK on 13 August 2026 by Doubleday Ireland. It is already in the bestseller charts!

The story follows Jack, a 12-year-old boy, after the death of his mother and his father’s subsequent institutionalisation. Jack goes to live with his maternal grandparents and extended family in rural Tipperary. The story deals with grief, adolescence, family secrets and the strange way a child's sense of time and reality changes after trauma.

There’s also plenty of the dark humour and warmth that readers associate with Ryan. His uncles, grandparents and cousin JJ provide much of the book's eccentricity, while Jack's perspective gives it a particularly vulnerable quality.

The reviews so far

The response has been excellent:

· The Irish Times called it a “wrenching, gorgeous new novel” and praised Ryan's handling of narrative time and the relationship between adolescent emotion and the natural world.

· The Guardian describes it as a quietly powerful exploration of grief, memory and family, praising Ryan's warmth and humour alongside the sadness.

· The Financial Times calls it a poignant examination of adolescent grief and familial dysfunction, with echoes of Tove Ditlevsen's Childhood

· The Farmers Journal went even further, calling it “one of the best books of the year” and saying it could be difficult for anything else to surpass it. FFarmers Journal

Ryan has been on Oliver Callan on RTÉ and on Newstalk with Matt Cooper on The Last Word