Contemporary Fiction

In these masterful stories, Mary O’Donnell captures characters caught between certainties and change — from urban encounters to sun-drenched beaches, lockdown anxieties to nightclub tensions. Her walking ghosts navigate the limina…

TWO BOYS MEET. EVERYTHING CHANGES. On the cusp of adulthood, James dreams of another life far away from his small village.As he contends with the expectations of his family, his burgeoning desire - an ache for autonomy, tenderness…

You were everything I ever wanted.Johnny was my first. I was seventeen and I was only brave enough to talk to him after I'd had three vodkas. He was only brave enough to kiss me when no-one else was around.Dave was different. We d…

Luke, Connor, Thea and Violet spend their first holiday together alone in their father's house in the south of France. The boys don't really know him, and they don't really know their half-sisters, either. Luke, the most easy goin…

Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she …

Family is everything, even when it falls apart.Discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author. There is a heatwave across Europe.Goose and his three sisters gather at the family's house by Lake Orta in…

'Life is a seesaw, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced: living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don't move a muscle, I think. But I will, of course. You have to...' Fo…

The bestselling Irish debut novel – a multigenerational portrait of small-town life bursting with caustic wit – for fans of Jon McGregor, Elizabeth Strout and Paul Murray. Welcome to Ballyrowan: a village built out of stories. Sto…

A civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test whether time-travel is feasible.Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, supporting and monit…

A mystery that will take you around the world . . .Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the mov…

Six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the de…

Susan Ryeland has had enough of murder. She's edited two novels about the famous detective, Atticus Pund, and both times she's come close to being killed. Now she's back in England and she's been persuaded to work on a third. The …

Fighting off the boredom of lockdown, acclaimed author Jim Winter decides to share his skills by setting up an anonymous online writing workshop – but his generosity will cost him more than he knows. Right away, the work of a tale…

How do you survive the unsurvivable?Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it's the comfortable family life she always thought she'd have. All of that changes in an instant - when Tom runs the family car off the…

Willy Vlautin's most personal novel yet - a poetic and deeply moving story about what it really takes to be a musician. Al Ward, an ageing musician, is living on old mining land in Nevada. One morning, a horse arrives outside his …

Imogene is young, beautiful, kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead, the legendary ghost of the Rosebud Theater. Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with a head full of big ideas and a gi…

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.He knows what he's done, and now awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago. Ansel doesn't want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.But this is not his story…

You wait ages for The One . . . then 203 come along at once. One night Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. All the evidence – from photos to electricity bills – suggests he’s right. And then anothe…

A story of sacrifice, violence and growing up different – told against the heat and claustrophobia of a seaside city in summer. After Matthew’s grandfather dies suddenly, four friends struggle to face the trauma of their pasts in…

New York City, 1999. Lily Chen is an unpaid intern, pursuing the American Dream, when she falls for a young financier – and the life of luxury his vast fortune promises. Everything she wants seems to finally be within reach.But de…

In Edmundsbury, a small town in eastern England, fear and loathing are on the rise. Brexit has happened and the ramifications are real. Grass-roots, right-wing political party 'England Always' is fomenting hatred.The residents of …

Burnt-out from a demanding job and a bustling life in the city, Emelie has left town to spend a few days in the country. Once there, in the peaceful, verdant hills, down by the river she encounters a mysterious group of seven peop…

‘What are you?’ This is the puzzled question that greets a young Trelawny growing up in a Miami where his racial ambiguity is regarded with confusion and suspicion. It’s not just his neighbours, his Jamaican parents Topper and Sa…

I'd always dreamed of my wedding day. But not like this. Not looking into the eyes of the man who betrayed me.  But when my nephew's guardianship is contested, I decide I'll do whatever it takes to keep him in Rose Hill. Even if i…

From one of the world's bestselling authors, Winter Garden is a moving, haunting and compelling novel illuminating the intricacy of mother-daughter bonds and the enduring links between past and present. 'One of the greatest storyt…

In the new novel from the author of Assembly, a viral longread exposé raises more questions than it answers.  Remember - words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency. On a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned…

THE IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER. A marriage unravels in a Spanish hotel room as a young wife is haunted by a past love. A father travels to Paris to meet his scientist son and is exposed to his son's true nature. A woman attends a read…

Two teenage girls fixate on each other's bodies; a woman encounters an ex and reflects on the women's group that saved her; an older man's buried grief emerges in encounter with a woman driving a 4×4; and a waitress lacks the mone…

Christine Beckett is faced with some home truths when her best friend, suffering from dementia, decides after a lifetime to be honest with her; Olivia Fletcher has an epiphany at a vaccination centre about a man who has loved her …

We spend more time than we know trying to go back. We call it fantasising, we call it dreaming. . . but we're all crawling back, each in his or her own way. A group of college friends find themselves marooned at a luxurious hotel…