You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
None
'Luminous' SEBASTIAN BARRY 'Incandescent characters and mellifluous prose' LISA CAREY 'Reminiscent of Edith Wharton at her very best' LIZ NUGENT _________ The true story of a woman ahead of her time . . . In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed "the peasant countess" by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy. Becoming Belle is the story of the four years in between, of Belle's rapid ascent and the people that tried to tear her down. Reimagined by a novelist at the height of her powers, Belle is an unforgettable woman. Set against an absorbing port...
At the heart of this radical new collection of short stories from award-winning writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir, is an exploration of the pain and pleasure of lose: sexual love, romantic love, the love between parents and their children. Expanding on the concerns of her first short fiction collection, The Wind Across the Grass, her focus in these fictions is on the events that cause relationships to flounder. Set against a backdrop of contemporary Ireland, as well as Europe of the past and present, they are brimming with sensuality, art, secret and loss.
This is a memorable first collection from the award-winning writer, the short stories leave a lasting impression on the mind of the reader.
The Closet of Savage Mementos is drawn directly from the author's own experiences and explores heartbreak, loss, motherhood and adoption in a gripping narrative and the same expressive, emotive and exciting prose we have come to expect of Nuala N Chonchir."
In this short story collection, mothers tattoo their children and abduct them; they act as surrogates and they use charms to cure childhood illness. The story Letters' sees an Irish mother cling to love of her son, though he abandoned her in New York. In Queen of Tattoo,' Lydia, the tattooed lady from the Groucho Marx song, tries to understand why her son is a bad man. Set in Ireland and America, as well as Paris, Rome, and Mexico, these stories map the lives of parents and the boundaries they cross. Ni Chonchuir's sinewy prose dazzles as she exposes the follies of motherhood as well as its triumphs.
None
Love is the central force in Birdie, a collection of sixteen historical and out-of-time flash fictions that sing with the voices of women loving and losing and learning. The characters here find strength despite the sorrows of death and deceit. A ghost-child returns to Massachusetts to comfort her grieving mother; the daughter of a Spanish orange tycoon regrets her mother's terrible choices; an English maid longs for, but can't be with, her mistress's son. Birdie contains Nuala O'Connor's signature ekphrastic work, drawing on artists as diverse as Matisse, da Vinci, and American painter Edwin Romanzo Elmer.
The debut novel from short story author Nuala Ní Chonchúir, 'You' follows a ten-year-old girl who lives with her separated mother and two brothers. Set against the backdrop of Dublin in 1980, the story unfolds through the narrator's observations and interactions, and her naïve interpretations of adult conversations and behaviour.
Love and marriage, children and family, death and grief. Life touches everyone the same, but living under lockdown? It changes us alone. A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret. Told with Doyle's signature warmth, wit and extraordinary eye for the richness that underpins the quiet of our lives, Life Without Children cuts to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness and the shifting of history underneath our feet. 'Life Without Children is boldly exhilarating, with its revelations of quiet love and the sheer charm of the characters' voices' Sunday Times 'Quietly devastating...shivers with emotion' Financial Times 'In the stripping away of everyday anxieties, the virus reveals what matters most, those qualities that are always at the heart of Doyle's fiction: love and connection' Observer 'Moving...and beautiful' Daily Mail