Fiction Reviews

A Moment Like This by Anita Notaro

An anonymous friend has entered shy, retiring songbird Antonia Trent for a nationwide talent show. At first, Antonia doesn't intend to leave her small Wicklow town and her place in the church choir to attend the auditions. Gradually she realises that she needs to take this opportunity in both hands and move her life forward. Antonia has hidden herself away for too long, using caring for her invalid mother as a way of keeping the wider world at bay. She has been blessed with a beautiful voice that her mother used to liken to a nightingale’s song; maybe now's the time to shine. When Antonia meets Dr Niall O'Rourke, she begins (despite her tendency to blush scarlet with alarming frequency) to hope for love.

To move forward however, Antonia (or her alter ego Toni) will have to use all the courage she can muster to deal with the tough world of the overnight celebrity. This is a novel about taking your life back and using your talents to the full. But, it is also about friends and friendship; the people who will back you up, hold your hand and tell you what’s what when the going gets tough. Will Antonia /Toni manage to deal with the Simon Cowell lookalike? Does her new romance with the hill-walking doctor have a future? And should she pretend to have a romance with a fellow contestant as a publicity stunt?

For the answers to these pressing questions, read this tale of a budding star's 'moment like this'!

Chris Mills Hughes and Hughes, Dundrum

Love and Marriage by Patricia Scanlan

Love and Marriage is the final part of the family saga set in and around Dublin that began in 2008 with Forgive and Forget. The story continued with Happy Ever After and now the loose ends will all be neatly tied up. Or will they?

You will have to read this page-turning sequel to find out. I don’t think you really need to have read the two earlier episodes to enjoy the novel, as a comprehensive prologue sets the scene for the action in Love and Marriage. I haven’t read the earlier parts but found it easy enough to pick up on the characters, though the family connections seem rather complicated at first.Regular readers will be rooting for the various characters to sort out their differences with each other in this final act of the drama so I won’t spoil any surprises.

Family dynamics are tested to the utmost and much wisdom and understanding will be needed to achieve that often-elusive happy conclusion. One question asked is whether the younger couple, Debbie and Bryan will manage to avoid the mistakes made by the older generation. Happily, Drew and Connie seem to have found love second time around, while Barry and Aimee are struggling to maintain their marriage. And what of Aimee’s parents? Can they learn from the past and move on? How will the demise of the Celtic Tiger affect the lives of the families?

Family relationships form the heart of this novel; the keys to solving many of life’s problems. Scanlan tackles the difficult subjects of unwanted pregnancy and a teenager sliding towards anorexia with sensitivity and compassion. The twists and turns of the plot test the characters’ resilience to the utmost but the bonds of both family and friendship will pull them through. Lessons are learnt and new relationships forged; a modern family is successfully forged from the emotional flames.

Review by Christine Mills, Hughes and Hughes Dundrum

The Out of Office Girl by Nicola Doherty
 
After a bad few weeks during which she's been dumped by her boyfriend, Alice is dropped in at the deep end at work by being sent to Sicily to encourage a reluctant celebrity to get down to work on his autobiography. She's thrilled at first, as Luther Carson has been the subject of a twenty-year crush, but it doesn't take long before she has to make a choice between business and pleasure. Should she risk her job and professional reputation to enjoy herself with this A-list Hollywood hunk, or should she force him to knuckle down, and in the process alienate him forever? A cast of supporting characters are not quite what they seem (or are they?) - Annabel the bitchy wannabe, Sam the arrogant agent, and Marisa the beautiful local.

Newcomer Nicola Doherty has created a romantic escapist treat which nevertheless manages real insight and truth. Alice is a particularly likeable, down-to-earth character, as she negotiates tricky emotional terrain and manages to draw personal details and revelations from all those around her. In the process, we see interesting snapshots of life and work in both the publishing and film-making industries, and the characters are sometimes scarily cautionary tales as to what can happen when vulnerable people are chewed up and spat back out by big business.
 
But don't let these tiny snippets of doom and gloom (and reality!) put you off - this is a light, fun read, the perfect accompaniment either to a rainy Sunday or a sunny holiday!
 
Aoife Roantree, Hughes and Hughes, Dundrum

 

Not Quite a Fairy Tale by Cee Liddy (Penguin) 

Cee Liddy’s first novel follows his well-received collection of short stories entitled I Love you but... (40 fights between husbands and wives). This is a modern fairy-ish tale (it begins ‘once upon a time’ after all) about a girl, a boy and a fair few frogs (ten to be precise). The two main protagonists, John and Evelyn meet one evening in January 1989 at a heavily gate crashed student party in Dublin. However, they do not fall in love; perish the thought, this is not really a fairy story.John and Evelyn’s first encounter is memorable, though for John the consequences are painful: an injury to his right arm on falling out of a three-wheeled Ford Cortina. They are both students at Trinity College and I was rather impressed to find that Evelyn was studying engineering.

The novel is a lively read peopled with a large cast of boyfriends auditioning for the role of prince. It is a light-hearted, witty tale yet with a few sharp edges, spanning twenty years worth of loving, losing and trying to find a mate. Liddy probes and pokes at the differences and misunderstandings arising between men and women as they try to find Mr or Mrs Almost Right. Sadly, Evelyn finds more frogs than princes; Gary sporting Doc Martins with florescent laces (who lets Evelyn do his assignments) and Shane the would-be rock star (who allows her to pay the bills) are but two of them. I will not spoil the plot by revealing more. Suffice to say that Evelyn has worked out a mnemonic to help her remember the qualities that she is looking for in a man. It goes like this: GITH-TH-SSS.If you want to know what it means, read the book. 

Chris Mills, Hughes and Hughes Dundrum

 

The Cove by Ron Rash

Siblings Laurel and Hank live on their late parents’ farm at the Cove, in the permanent shadow of a high cliff in the mountains of North Carolina. Hank is trying to run the farm having lost a hand in the still-ongoing First World War. He plans to marry a local girl and move away from the Cove. Laurel was born with a large birthmark, resulting in her being stigmatised by the superstitious local community; she has never known love or even happiness. Into their lives comes Walter, a mute stranger, who decides to stay and help on the farm. A deep bond of affection forms between Walter and Laurel, bringing something good into the darkness of the Cove. This is another exquisite piece by the author of Serena and Burning Bright and I was compelled to read this masterful story through in one sitting.

 
Matthew Ziruk, Dubray Books Galway

 

 

The House of Dust and Dreams by Brenda Reid

Newly-wed Evadne finds life in Athens with Hugh, her diplomat husband, to be both stifling and unsatisfying.  Dispatched briefly to Crete on the cusp of World War Two, they stay in a ramshackle old house belonging to Hugh’s family. When her husband returns to Athens, Evadne remains behind and is given the name Heavenly by the people of the village. She befriends the mysterious Anthi and dreams of renovating the old house but the arrival of Christos, a young builder, changes everything – this is not a good time to fall in love.  As the clouds of war gather over Crete, Heavenly and the villagers struggle to keep their lives on track.  When the Germans invade, the locals go underground and fight with tenacity and bravery. This historical novel of a courageous people fighting to regain their island is a real page-turner.

Aileen Smyth, Dubray Books Rathmines

The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier

In this intriguing novel, we are treated to a truly unique reading experience. Carol Ann Page is alone and in hospital, light issuing from her wounds. All over the world, for reasons unknown, pain is manifesting itself as light, pouring forth from every cut, scar, bruise and lesion. On the news, they're calling this extraordinary phenomenon the ‘Illumination'. Carol Ann comes across a private journal, filled with the most heartfelt, everyday declarations of love. The journal will pass from her to five other people and in the process change their lives forever. We see how even the smallest of human interactions can alter lives in a profound way. I enjoyed this book as I did Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, specifically how the individual stories of each of the characters inter-connect through the passing of the journal.

Tony O’Neill, Dubray Books Blackrock

Bed by David Whitehouse

At the age of twenty-five, Malcolm Ede got into bed.  Twenty years and about ninety stone later, he's still there: a circus attraction for the media, friends and neighbours. As told by his younger brother, we are taken on the wild ride that is the story of Malcolm Ede.  Comfortable with nudity, especially his own, erratic and unpredictable, Malcolm is a force to be reckoned with, often at his brother’s expense.  From missed holidays to stolen girlfriends, his younger brother is merely a bit-part player in the theatre that is Malcolm Ede’s life.  This engaging story sucks you in and blankets you in the crazy, the brilliant, and the hilarity that is Malcolm’s life. You might ask why but I doubt even Malcolm could answer that.  Bed is that perfect read for when you just don't want to leave your own!

Olivia Bergin, Dubray Books Kilkenny

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

This beautifully written, tender love story, set in Seattle during a dark period of American history, treats its subject and its characters with great sensitivity. Henry feels he is an outcast, both at home because of a generational conflict and at his all-white school where he is busy scholarshipping – mailing out countless applications in the hope of having his college fees paid. Struggling with his heritage as a Chinese-American and without any friends his own age, he feels lost and alone until he meets Keiko, a Japanese-American girl. What starts out as a secretive friendship soon blossoms into a love that, with China and Japan at war, is strictly forbidden by both their families. The attack on Pearl Harbour further heightens the racism and paranoia among U.S. citizens and results in the enforced internment of all Japanese-Americans.

Bobbie Ryan, Dubray Books Bray

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

North Korea is one of the most cloistered nations in the world, offering propaganda as information both at home and abroad. In this novel, Adam Johnson tears a slit in this veil of secrecy and reveals the humanity that lies within. Jun Do believes his mother to be a beautiful singer and that he is the son of the master of the orphanage in Pyongyang. He works hard at the orphanage, taking on more and more responsibility. He attracts the attention of superiors of the state, who recognize his value as a trusted comrade and give him increasingly brutal and terrifying assignments. But, as Jun Do is pushed to the brink of endurance, he must take on Kim Jung-Il himself or lose the woman he loves. Johnson’s novel is a treat—thoroughly researched, eminently readable and in turns horrifying and surprisingly funny.

Helen Bradshaw, Dubray Books Dun Laoghaire

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

Joe Spork, the son of a deceased criminal, repairs clocks and lives a quiet life in an uninspiring part of London. Edie Banister lives a similarly unassuming life but memories and thoughts of her past life as a spy are never far from her mind.  When Joe fixes an unusual automaton for Edie that turns out to be a Doomsday device, their humdrum lives are radically transformed and in perilous danger. The characters in Angelmaker are superb, particularly that of Edie who, at the age of almost ninety, still wields a pistol with the utmost of confidence, while viewing the world with the detachment of a spy. Although the book is set in modern times, it has a wonderfully dark, humorous atmosphere with definite hints of noir. The writing is like clockwork, ticking and winding and counting down to a fantastic ending.

Helen Corcoran, Dubray Books Grafton St

Winter Flowers by Carol Coffey

With a gripping opening, Winter Flowers launches the reader directly into the troubled life of two little brothers, Luke and Jack. Their mother, Hazel, has yet another drunken boyfriend’ around for the evening and the little lads are shunned to their bedroom. But when the ‘boyfriend’ falls asleep and leaves the chip pan on, Jack and Hazel end up in hospital with Luke begging his aunt Iris for help – again!

Tired of bailing her sister out of trouble, Iris turns up at the hospital to receive a litany of abuse from Hazel and she’s left with little choice but stay the night with her sister and nephews when Hazel insists on signing herself out of hospital without medical consent. This is but another in a pattern of events in the sisters’ lives. Left in care by their father after their mother’s death, Iris has been watching out for her wayward sister for many a year. Her nephews, whom she adores, are her greatest concern, not to mention her fear that history is repeating itself in front of her very eyes.

Iris has also been seriously affected by her father’s abandonment, leaving her to make a catastrophic decision sixteen years before when she walked away from an adoring husband and eight-month-old son in London. Turning her back on a career in nursing as well as her family, she lives a simple lifestyle in Dublin and survives on the meagre income she makes from dressmaking, the only disruption to her loneliness being the distraction provided by Hazel and her little boys.

But it takes a serious misdemeanour from Hazel’s ‘boyfriend’ to force both sisters to take a true look at the danger Hazel is putting her children in. On the verge of losing them, she makes a concentrated effort to be the parent to her boys she had never received herself. Happiness, however, is in short supply for the family as yet another disaster strikes, reversing the sisters’ roles for the first time and putting Hazel in charge of Iris’s wellbeing. Unused to taking responsibility, Hazel isn’t confident she’s capable of doing it alone and with little thought for her sister’s feelings on the matter, she dials Iris’s ex-husband’s number, reopening a painful chapter in Iris’s life that can never be undone.

A beautifully written book, Winter Flowers displays two vulnerable little boys as real people born into unfortunate circumstance. Their personalities jump off the page and despite the sadness tinged throughout the book from the very first page, the author has done a tremendous job in portraying this dysfunctional family’s to survive and overcome issues from their past that were entirely outside of their control.

A Year Like No Other by Pauline Lawless, Poolbeg

A Year Like No Other is a gem from Pauline Lawless. Returning to the bookshelves with a book set in the glitzy city of Paris, she invites her readers to join her characters in one of the most romantic and glamorous cities in Europe.

Launching four women on the city for a year, three to accompany their husbands on a work contract and the other to join the men in the boardroom, the excitement is only beginning.

Ashling is delighted to experience Paris with husband and children, enrolling them in the local school and giving them the true Parisian opportunity. At a loose end herself in the mornings, she dabbles in some writing, frequenting a quaint coffee shop for inspiration and enjoying the company of an older man who offers superb advice with her writing. Though she’s not sure why, she neither shares her new friend or new hobby with her husband

Taylor is none-too-pleased to move to Paris but isn’t strong enough to survive alone without her husband. With grown up children, there’s nothing holding her back. And she supposes that she’ll be able to continue her prescription-drug habit over there. If nothing else, it will help her get through – that and swiping her credit card in the magnificent fashion houses.

Jazz leaves her fiancé behind, the job opportunity in Paris a chance for them to decide once and for all if they are destined to be together. Happy in the cut and thrust of the business world, she’s delighted to join the company and befriend the others, leaving her relationship worries behind – or so she thinks until she realises that a past heartbreak is working in the same building.

Felicity doesn’t enjoy change. Growing up in the shadow of an overbearing parent, she isn’t very good at standing up for herself. But, like the other women, she finds herself in the cosmopolitan city knowing nobody apart from the other women who’ve arrived as part of the same entourage.

Four women thrown together by chance and it isn’t all plain sailing - but surely they can survive just one year? Or can’t they?


All Over Again by Emma Heatherington

Second Chances are at the centre of Emma Heatherington latest fiction title. Hailing from Northern Ireland, the author has pitched her novel in the picturesque seaside town of Castlebay on the northern coast of Ireland. Best friends as children, Natalie and Michelle delight in spending a summer together once more – although very different to the carefree heady days they’d spent on sand dunes.

Natalie’s 35^th birthday is a strong reminder that life is passing her by. Though madly in love with Doug, her feelings don’t quite venture as far as his outspoken children who miss little chance to tell her that she will never replace their deceased mum! Delighted when Doug proposes, her excitement is dashed yet again by his admittance that their wedding will have to be low-key. But a scaled down wedding isn’t her only concern. More than anything she wants a baby, something Doug can’t provide her with. When a man from her past returns to Castlebay, looking every bit as handsome as she remembered, Natalie’s idea of happy ever after begins to sour. Turning to her friend, Michelle, she wonders if marriage is the answer after all.

Michelle is preoccupied with her own worries. Recently separated from her wealthy, if controlling, husband, Caleb, she is adjusting to life without a partner. With two children, however, she’s seldom alone. Reassuring her son that their separation won’t affect his relationship with his father, she is still shocked when Caleb arrives to Castlebay with a reunion in mind. And this isn’t her only dilemma. Falling pregnant at 17, Michelle’s daughter is ready to meet her biological father, Patrick. Though she resents him for walking out on her and their baby, the mention of his name still sends a shiver down her spine. And she isn’t the only one who notices.

Two friends, dilemmas galore and lots of twists and turns into the mix. All Over Again will make perfect reading in front of a blazing fire on these chilly autumn evenings.

The Time of my Life by Cecelia Ahern 

Cecelia Ahern has delighted her fans with the timely release of her latest title, The Time Of My Life just in time for Christmas. But readers who’ve enjoyed P.S. I Love You, A Place Called Here and The Gift should prepare themselves for something very different. Ahern has left light hearted fantasy behind in favour of a more sinister tone as she explores the idea that many of us treating our life appallingly.

Main character, Lucy Silchester, is stuck in a rut and on the verge of turning thirty. Still pining for her ex-boyfriend and in a job she finds torturous, she hides the truth on a continuous basis – particularly from herself – as she goes around pretending everything is fine and distorting the truth to save face.

As per usual with Cecilia Ahern, her story takes an unusual twist. And The Time Of My Life is no different as Lucy’s ‘life’ (if you can believe this) becomes a character in the book. Life calls Lucy to a meeting in an effort to force her to confront the way she has been ignoring and neglecting her life and lying about the way she’s handling things on a daily basis.

After a few attempts at ignoring the instruction to meet with ‘Life’, Lucy eventually turns up at the appointed location and time. She is instantly disgusted to meet a very dishevelled person - unkempt and unshaven with a forehead of disastrous flaky-skin. The space he’s renting is far from chic and part of a dilapidated shabby old building.

Coming face to face with her shortcomings, Lucy is reluctant to take action until ‘Life’ throws obstacles in her way that force her to face up to facts. But what she notices as she deals with some of her problems is that ‘Life’ is also starting to look a little more impressive - clean-shaven, better groomed and smelling better too.

Tackling issues of a personal and romantic nature, her relationship with her sibling and parents and her habit of sticking her head in the sand instead of dealing with problems as they arise are part of the lessons Life is teaching Lucy.

As with many of her other stories, the underlying premise of the novel has to be accepted rather than rationalised. It may be far from reality but at the same time will force readers to give thought to their own attitude towards life and question whether they’re denying themselves the chance of living it in a more worthwhile fashion, with just a little more effort.

Already at Number One, Ahern will undoubtedly dance around the bestseller lists for weeks to come. Well done to her – she takes a unique look at ‘life’ and isn’t afraid to run with it!

 

 

A Season to Remember by Sheila O'Flanagan &
Christmas Magic by Cathy Kelly 

Bookshelves and bookshops seem to change in the run up to Christmas – possibly one of the busiest times of year for booksellers. Sports books, biographies, literary and popular favourites and last but not least short story collections fill those all-important eye-level shelves and weigh down the tables perched inside the doors of some of our favourite bookshops.

 

Two well-known popular fiction favourites – Sheila O’Flanagan and Cathy Kelly – have brought out timely collections for the festive season. In tune with the fact that short stories are sometimes a preferred option at this busy time of year, both authors have written with this in mind.

 

Sheila O’Flanagan’s Sugar Loaf Lodge in ‘A Season To Remember’ reminds me a little of the huge part New York played in Sex And The City. Setting each of her stories in this County Wicklow country house, the experienced author introduces numerous characters – each dealing with individual nostalgia and heartache as they leave their homes to spend Christmas in such a beautiful setting with spicy mulled wine and blazing open fires.

 

 

 

Sipping wine and waiting for her lover to arrive, Holly’s heart aches as time ticks by and she’s left sitting alone in the foyer surrounded by loving couples. Andrew and Bridget are there to forget a recent disappointment and Jim and Laura are celebrating their daughter’s first Christmas. But despite the elaborate trimmings and the ridiculous expectations associated with the festivities, the smiles on many faces are merely a façade for what’s going on beneath the core.

 

 

 

Cathy Kelly, Christmas Magic,

 

Cathy Kelly’s, Christmas Magic, is a little deceiving in that it’s pink sparkly sets the reader up for a deluge of Christmas offerings while the stories are a little more diverse and not all wrapped up in tinsel and festive wrapping. Renowned for her talent in drawing relationships and exploring beneath the surface of everyday family life, Christmas Magic doesn’t disappoint and brings an abundance of familiar Kelly charm.

 

From Dolores and Genevieve, two spinster sisters who must finally break free from their mother's powerful personality, to Alice, who is faced with the dilemma of opening her home and her heart to the one visitor that she doesn't want this Christmas, the stories in Christmas Magic will make you laugh and cry and wonder if these are people from your neighbourhood.

Presenting a mother, sister, daughter or friend with a short story collection from either or both of the authors mentioned above is a guaranteed win-win on Christmas morning…and don’t forget it’s okay too to present yourself with a book for the Christmas holidays! After all, what else can you buy for a mere €10 that will bring numerous hours of pleasure and escapism as well as keep you out of the biscuit tin?!

The Cold Eye of Heaven by Christina Dwyer-Hickey

 

Last month, during an illuminating interview with Sean Rocks, host of the RTE radio One Arts Show Arena, author Christine Dwyer Hickey described how she had abandoned her half completed novel to start a new one from scratch all because one of her minor characters just wouldn’t leave her alone. Unwilling to accept his original, short-lived fictional fate as an inconsequential character destined to be quickly killed off this imaginary man demanded to be heard at every turn and would not let her rest. This pushy fictional creature is Farley, protagonist of Dwyer Hickey’s new novel The Cold Eye of Heaven. It was he who insisted on occupying the limelight while the novel that originally gave him his existence was re-crafted as a short story.

We first meet everyman Farley Grainger, an auld fella in extremis, as he faces his end one wintry night in Dublin. Before he goes Dywer Hickey allows him to take the reader on a compelling journey with an unconventional chronology that jerks us backwards through the decades of his very Dublin existence. Although narrated in the third person this intimate recounting of Farley’s life is clearly told from his own limited and coloured perspective. The scene is perfectly set in each decade though careful inclusion of reference points that evoke the era without resorting to a heavy-handed and laboriously Reeling in the Years style listing of headline events; there are fleeting glimpses of the H-Block marches, Nixon’s visit and Italia ‘90.

 

 Poetic and compelling descriptions of Dublin swirl around the one constant character of Farley as he relives a life full of sorrow, loss and unresolved narratives. One searing tragedy leaves him guilt-ridden and unable to move on. It defines the older man and overshadows every choice he makes for more than half his life.

 The Dublin setting is far removed from Dwyer Hickey’s beloved  Italy, her second home and setting for her bestselling novel Last Train from Liguria; a book that was nominated for the prestigious Prix Européen de Littérature. Yet she can evoke the nuances and narrowness of her native city with a familiar ease and inexorably draws the reader into this compelling and unconventionally told tale that powerfully embodies the landscape that shaped not only Farley Granger but many of us.

 

City of Bohane by Kevin Barry 

 

 

Bohane is the throbbing epicentre of Big Nothin’. Its inhabitants are tribal, vicious, and territorial with a feral and possessive quality. The map accompanying the book to this area could be a province of Tolkien’s Middle Earth as much as this alternate western Irish seaboard of 2054. The river flows into the heart of Bohane and brings with it the smell and air the city folk breath as they go about their daily business of drinking, whoring, smoking, fighting and gambling. “Whatever is wrong with us is coming in off that river. No argument: the taint of badness on the city’s air is a taint off that river.” The city is kept in line, just back from the edge of total deprivation by Logan Hartnett and his gang The Fancy. With his heavy muscle, the exquisitely named Fucker Burke and Wolfie Stanners, things tick along as only they can in Bohane.

  

The return of one of the city’s old boys, the Gant Broderick upsets this delicate balance between life and outright warfare. Barry’s building of Bohane City, its areas such as the North Side Rises, Smoke Town and Beauvista, and its people such as the grimy journalist Dom Gleeson, the fiery Jenni Ching, is quite sublime. The writing flows quick with snappy dialogue, unapologetically dark and edged in humour. It often hits you like an unexpected spit in your eye. You’re left quite literally reeling.

 Gant flows into the town and causes whispering that alerts Logan that something is even more unsettling than normal in Bohane. Add to this the rising threat from across the regions from the Cusacks and it seems Logan’s grip on Bohane is certainly being prodded by all and sundry. A series of cloak-and-dagger meetings, memory-stirring letters between the Gant and Logan’s wife Macu as well as rising tension across Big Nothin’ spell out something big is going down in Bohane. And that spells trouble.

 The story moves along at times like a film-noir, at other times like a graphic novel. The threat of conflict and betrayal is ever in the air and when bloody violence does erupt it occurs ‘offstage’ and presented through description of photographs of the battle. While being a very clever device, it lessens the impact of increasing tension, much of the taut expectations of the reader are left wanting. While near entire pages describe to the stitch the dress of each major character, we are left lacking somewhat on the true dept of Bohane’s characters, their lives and past experiences. There certainly seems to be more to the love triangle of Hartnett, Macu and the Gant than we are seeing on the surface. This perhaps could be a sign of Barry’s move from the short story form, in which he is extremely skilled at, to the longer form. More also could be put before the reader on the past relationship, for instance, of Logan Hartnett and his Mother, the intriguing spindly octogenarian.

 Perhaps the biggest beast Bohane has given birth to is Barry himself. He is riding the crest of a huge wave of momentum at the moment and is drawing phenomenal attention wherever he appears to read. If you can get to any reading of his work by Kevin Barry himself, it is more than worth the trip. Barry does not just read his work, he lives it. You realise Barry writes for the ear as much as for the eye. At Galway’s Cuirt International Festival of Literature this year, he asked of Anne Enright, would she consider changing the arrangement and even words of a sentence so as to make it sound better. Enright thoughtfully responded, “Perhaps not”. Barry’s quiet nod of the head and raised eyebrow suggested he did exactly the opposite, and quite often too! Such is his emphasis on writing flowing language; his syntax is overruled by skill and craft with placing of colloquial narratives and dialogue.

 

City of Bohane is an accomplished debut novel from Barry, the Rooney Short-Story prize winner for his debut collection of stories There are Little Kingdoms. He presents himself as someone very comfortable in his style and language and Barry is indeed a writer of immense talent and passion. The language of Bohane is harsh and wild but crudely joyous. If the wonderful There are Little Kingdoms was Barry’s announcement of what to expect then City of Bohane is a loud confirmation that more greatness is to follow. 

 

The Better Half by Sarah Harte

 

Anita is a wife on the edge. Thanks to her husband Frank's success in business she has lived a lavish lifestyle at the heart of the city's elite. However, now that the economy is in freefall, it seems the days of boozy lunches with 'the girls', glittering charity balls and competitive designer shopping are over.

 

Still, though the banks are breathing down their necks, and their marriage is far from perfect, Anita had believed she and Frank would pull through. After all, they came from nothing. That was until she heard news that shook both her marriage, and the family she thought happy and secure, to its foundations. As she faces meltdown, Anita is haunted. Why did she walk away from her one chance to prove herself on her own terms? What happened to the love that was once so overwhelming? And how did she let herself get lost in an empty high-rolling lifestyle? Anita has to find herself again ...but how do you do that when you're just someone else's better half?

 

The Best of Everything·by Rona Jaffe

When it first published in 1958, Rona Jaffe's debut novel electrified readers who saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. There's Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor's office; naive country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Now a classic, and as page-turning as when it first came out, "The Best of Everything" portrays their lives and passions with inteligence, affection, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.

Reviewed by Dubray Books ·

 

If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This·by Robin Black

From the blind girl who sees more than her parents can, to the portrait artist who sees more than her clients would wish, Robin Black illuminates secret fears, hidden desires, profound grief and enduring love in a collection as rich and varied as the relationships it describes. These are generous and compassionate stories for anyone attuned to the intricate heartbreak of families - to our power to hurt and to nurture those we love best. "Full of substance and colour. Many short stories have a habit of evaporating not long after you've read them. Black's have an uncanny tendency to stick around". ("Metro"). "An exploration of secret monologues and private emotions that makes for an illuminating, moving and universally resonant experience". ("Easy Living"). "Exquisitely distilled tales of loss and reckoning' Vogue 'Black writes with grace and simplicity". ("TLS").

Reviewed by Dubray Books. 

The Moment·by Douglas Kennedy

 

Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced American writer in the midst of a rueful middle age. Living a very private life in Maine - in touch only with his daughter and still trying to reconcile himself to the end of a long marriage that he knew was flawed from the outset - he finds his solitude disrupted by the arrival, one wintry morning, of a box postmarked Berlin. The return address on the box - Dussmann - unsettles him completely. For it is the name of the woman with whom he had an intense love affair twenty-six years ago in Berlin - at a time when the city was cleaved in two, and personal and political allegiances were haunted by the deep shadows of the Cold War.

 

Refusing initially to confront what he might find in that box, Thomas nevertheless finds himself forced to grapple with a past he has never discussed with any living person - and in the process relive those months in Berlin, when he discovered, for the first and only time in his life, the full, extraordinary force of true love. But Petra Dussmann - the woman to whom he lost his heart - was not just a refugee from a police state, but also someone who lived with an ongoing sorrow beyond dreams...and one which gradually rewrote both their destinies. In this, his tenth novel, Douglas Kennedy has written that rare thing: a love story as morally complex as it is tragic and deeply reflective.

Brilliantly gripping, it is an atmospherically dense, ethically tangled tale of romantic certainty and conflicting loyalties, all set amidst a stunningly rendered portrait of Berlin in the final dark years before "The Wall" came down. Like all of Kennedy's previous, critically acclaimed bestselling novels, "The Moment" is both unputdownable and profound. Posing so many searching questions about why and how we fall in love - and the tangled way we project on to others that which our hearts seek - it is a love story of great epic sweep and immense emotional power.

Reviewed by Dubray Books 

 

A Preparation for Death by Greg Baxter

 

GLOOMY and hilarious, Greg Baxter's mocking novel about a failed novelist (himself, in a wryly-created version of the dank Dublin bedsitter life of the exiled American artist) will have you whooping as you reach for the Luger to end it all. He lays it all out at first: the arrival in Dublin, crushed by failure, his acquisition of a job teaching creative writing (no! not that!) in the Irish Writers' Centre, his smothering, humiliating memories. But it's not long before he opens the gun cabinet, with a rib-busting, vicious description of a session of the Sewanee writers' week, carefully calibrated with the use of forgotten, once-famous writers. "A group of white-haired and weathered figures were standing around looking like Southern writers," he writes, sharpening up his stiletto.

"If you've ever seen a group of them together, you'll know what I mean. The closest I can come to describing it accurately is a highbrow and slightly effeminate fishing trip." It was at this stage that I actually put down the book and laughed out loud. Baxter has a killing eye for the telling detail, and watching him poking fun at the writing scene is like watching a horrid, intelligent little boy poking hopefully at the corpse of a putrefying lizard with a pointy stick - what can you do but snicker. His mentor, it soon turns out, will be Barry Hannah - a fabulously typical character: the novelist as liar. Barry is in the middle of chemo, and eats only pink stuff through a straw. But when he drags Baxter off on a search for a burger, mitching from the conference, Baxter - blind as a bat - ends up driving them along the country roads, and is gobsmacked when Barry meets a coven of rednecks, moustachioed and survivalist, inspecting their Stars and Bars and ammo and reliving their defeat; Barry, whose books are awash with moustachioed Deep South villains just like these, agrees vociferously with their hogwash. Aha, so are all his promises of publication for Baxter lies too? Mm? Hm? Mm? From this villainy Baxter delves further, into the death of his grandfather, a Waffen SS man, and his grandmother's marriages of convenience - material any writer would give his right ear for, of course - and we're back to the flat in Dublin, now shared with an Icelanding playwright for whom everything is part of her stories. Anyone who's spent any time in the horror subgenre of writers' retreats and hope will love this book, or else find it so terrifying that they run for their life. Terribly funny; perhaps too sharp for anyone but the brave.

Review by Heatseeker Reviews

 

Skippy Dies - Paul Murray

Costa Shortlisted this novel is a coming of age story, full of drama, romance, friendship and heartache and it is superbly told. I don't remember ever reading a book before that captured both my imagination and emotions so forcefully. Torn between laughter and tears I turned each page and on finishing the novel I found myself lonely for the characters I had so recently been introduced to. Paul Murray is a fantastically talented author and this is only his second offering, the future is bright for this gifted Irishman. Skippy Dies should have gone all the way and actually won the Man Booker Prize. Review by Lynn Crampton , Dubray Books Grafton Street ·

 

Room - Emma Donohue

Jack is five and lives with Ma in Room, which measures 11 feet square. Room has a skylight and a door with a keypad. Jack likes bouncing on Bed and doesn't like sleeping in Wardrobe – especially when Old Nick visits. He likes TV too, but knows what he sees there is all made-up; only Room is real. But when Ma tells Jack about Outside, nothing will ever be the same again. This is the story of a world seen through the eyes of a uniquely innocent boy, and of a remarkable love between mother and son – a love that will be their only touchstone when their world falls apart. It is unflinching and funny; tender and appalling; claustrophobic and full of hope. An imaginative response to the real-life horrors of similar true stories, fans of Alice Sebold will treasure this truly unforgettable read.

Review by Anna Kealy, Dubray Books, Blackrock ·

 

Ghost Light - Joseph O'Connor

A half-starved, half-frozen creature is wandering the streets of London in the winter of 1952.· To passers-by she's nothing but an Irish tramp, whereas this is no ordinary woman. She was once the toast of Dublin, famous for her beauty and her acting and – whisper it now – her liaison with the playwright John Millington Synge. She is Molly Allgood and she rose from the slums of Dublin to become his leading actress, his muse, his love and his fiancée.· Now, she shuffles across the frozen streets to read a bit part in a play for the BBC when once she took a leading role. This extraordinary novel details Molly's life since the untimely death of her beloved Synge and such is the power of Joseph O'Connor's writing that you will want to read it again and again.· There can be no higher recommendation.

Reviewed by Margot Coughlan, Dubray Books Stillorgan ·

 

The Foster, Claire Keegan

 

Another wonderful story from a firm favourite of mine, Claire Keegan, author of Antarctica and Walk The Blue Fields. A little girl is sent to live indefinitely with her 'mother's people' – a childless couple on a farm in rural Ireland with apparently plenty of food and money to spare. The girl is uneasy at first but soon grows to feel comfortable in a household where she finds love and affection, something she's never encountered before. Her happiness is short-lived, however, when a secret revealed by a neighbour threatens to destroy her childhood idyll. This is a beautifully written, sad and evocative story that is a must for anyone who enjoys good writing. I would have gladly stayed with the story for longer. Winner of last year's prestigious Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version.

Reviewed by Bobbie Ryan, Dubray Bray ·

 

YOU·By Nuala Ní Chonchúir

Nuala Ní Chonchúir, an award-winning poet and short story writer, sets her poignant debut novel in Dublin during the summer of 1980 and brilliantly invokes the period. Unusually, her unnamed ten-year-old narrator speaks to us in the second person, thus drawing the reader inexorably into the story from the very first line to the very last. Between the two we encounter the challenges and hardships faced by this endearing, exuberant child as she tries to make sense of growing up with a troubled mother and two much younger brothers. By turns tragic and charming this beautifully crafted story lingers in the imagination long after the last page has been turned. The fact that·Ní Chonchúir·literary antecedents are deeply rooted in poetry is evident in her lyrical, beautiful prose. Her obviously genuine affection for her compelling central character is truly infectious. A wonderful read. Some of my favourite quotes: "'He's a divil for the buttered Mariettas', she says. You're mad for them yourself; you love squishing two together and watching the butter ooze out through the holes, like tiny yellow worms" "You're glad it' not one of the new orange buses. It's one of the cream and black ones, the pint-of Guinness buses that have an open back door."

Reviewed by Eleanor Fitzsimmons Journalist & Writer