Helen Dunmore
When we think of England in the sixties, it’s the Beatles that spring to mind. We remember swinging London, and Carnaby Street; the mini skirt and a time of liberation; but when that decade began, things […]
Adrian White
Robert Lanaghan is a writer. Or at least he was, but since his second book was published, he hasn’t actually done any writing. Life has got in the way. There was his passionate affair with Siobhan […]
Amanda Prowse
It came as a surprise to Amanda Prowse that books just don’t come into other people’s heads complete, because she really thought it was the same for everyone, she tells Sue Leonard. A FEW years ago, […]
Kevin Curran.
This being 1916, it’s not surprising that the year has already seen a plethora of books set around the rising, but Citizens is one with a difference. Curran’s second novel is set mainly in the depths […]
Austin Duffy
Blending science with life, Austin Duffy’s retrained, yet hauntingly beautiful debut novel, centres on a New York based Irish oncologist who has retreated from the ward to the lab. He is trying to find a breakthrough […]
Caitriona Palmer
Caitríona Palmer is almost quivering with nerves when we meet to discuss her adoption story. She’s not worried about the book’s reception; early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. An Affair with my Mother is not only […]
Holly Seddon
SINCE the phenomenal success of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, there has been a flurry of similar page-turners in the genre that writer Marian Keyes has couched as Grip Lit. But back in […]
Claire Harman on Charlotte Bronte
WHEN Claire Harman was a teenager she saw a film of Wuthering Heights, and was blown away by the romance of it all. Later, reading Emily Brontë’s book, she was disappointed. “I was obsessed with the […]
David Kenny: The Press Gang
DAVID KENNY comes from a line of journalists and writers stretching back five generations. His father worked on The Irish Press; but when, as an 18-year-old, David decided to eschew the place he had won at […]
JoJo Moyes. After You.
Saturday, January 02, 2016 Review: Sue Leonard THE journalist JoJo Moyes started writing novels in 2002. She was prolific, and her books received good reviews and moderate sales. And then, in 2012 came Me Before You. […]
Justin Cartwright
In the middle of my interview with the eminent novelist, Justin Cartwright, he becomes emotional. We’re discussing Sweden; a country he loves, which made an appearance in his latest novel, and he told me about a […]
Cecelia Ahern
The Marble Collector. Harper Collins, €18.44; Kindle, €8.50 THE Marble Collector opens with a memory. Sabrina Bloggs, aged three, watches as her mother launches the teapot at the ceiling. In retrospect, she imagines this was done in […]