Debut Round-up, September and October, 2016
Red Dirt. E.M. Reapy. Head Zeus. Whenever I think I’ve found my debut of the year, another, even better novel comes along. And it’s happened again. Such was the originality, scope, and sheer skill evoked between […]
Jill Dawson
SOME years ago the writer Jill Dawson discovered the novels of Patricia Highsmith and became somewhat obsessed. She read The Talented Mr Ripley first, then started discussing Highsmith, and exchanging novels with her sister. “The novels […]
EM Reapy
IN 2011, when Elizabeth Reapy set off for Australia, she was seething with anger. A child of the ’80s who had previously only known good times, she could no longer stand living in recession-fuelled Ireland; she […]
Lia Mills at the WCLF.
Summer is literary festival season in Ireland, a chance for readers to meet writers and for books to be rediscovered. I was thrilled to be invited back to my favourite festival – the West Cork Literary […]
Mike McCormack
MIKE MCCORMACK is happy. It’s the afternoon of the launch of his latest novel, Solar Bones, and whatever reception the book might receive, he is satisfied that everyone involved in its production has given it their […]
Ciara Geraghty
FROM the moment Ciara Geraghty burst onto the book scene in 2009, she has been an author to reckon with. Compared favourably to Marian Keyes and Jojo Moyes, her books have that same warmth tinged with […]
Vanessa Ronan
When Vanessa Ronan rang her father to tell him that Penguin were publishing her first novel, he was on the golf course in Texas, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And when Vanessa blurted out her […]
Debut Roundup. July and August 2016
The Last Days of Summer. Vanessa Ronan: Penguin Ireland. When Jasper Curtis returns home to the small prairie town in Texas having spent ten years in the Huntsville State Penitentiary, his sister, Lizzie welcomes the brother […]
Henrietta McKervey
Mags Jensen’s memory isn’t all it was. And although she hasn’t, yet, got a diagnosis, both she and her doctor fear that her many lapses herald the onset of dementia. Her elder daughter, Anita, who, living […]
Joanna Walsh
Joanna Walsh rushes into the hotel for our interview, telling me she’s just come from the Irish Writer’s Centre. As well as publicising Vertigo, her latest collection of short stories, she’s in Dublin interviewing people for […]
Patrick Flanery
The author Patrick Flanery is American. He was raised in Omaha, Nebraska; but talking to him on the phone from his home in London, it is difficult to detect any American in his accent. Rather it […]
Emily Hourican
When Emily Hourican secured a book deal back in June 2015, she was on cloud nine. Her editor Ciara Doorley was wildly enthusiastic, and Emily worked on the structural edits over the summer. It had been […]