Ones to Watch

by Colin Morgan

€13.99

A tender coming-of-age story about friendship, first love, loss, and facing the ultimate question: who am I going to be? For fans of Douglas Stuart, Michael Magee, David Nicholls and Andrew O'Hagan Brendan's best friend, his only friend, is Ronan McCoy. He knows things about Brendan that no one else does: about his job washing the cars at Feeney’s Funeral Home, about the loneliness he sometimes feels even when surrounded by hundreds of others at school. But Brendan never told Ronan about the dark feeling that sits at the bottom of his stomach, the feeling that tells him something bad is coming. It never comes when Ronan's around. Ronan is smart and sporty and popular, totally comfortable in his own skin: all the things that Brendan himself isn't. But Ronan always makes him feel like a good friend, a good person, a better Brendan. Standing at the school gates on the first day of term, the dark feeling begins to form in Brendan's stomach. And when Ronan doesn’t turn up, Brendan learns that something terrible happened to his best friend over the summer and he'll never be the same again. Over the course of the final year of school, Brendan will have to learn to navigate the new shape of their friendship and find a place for himself in the world without Ronan to protect him. The Ballad of Ronan McCoy is a beautifully written, tender coming-of-age story about friendship and first love, loss and letting go, and the hopes and fears of a young man standing on the cusp of the rest of his life. Ideal for readers who: Have a soft spot for tender Irish coming-of-age stories about friendship, first love and grief. Follow Brendan and Ronan's bond as it carries both humour and heartbreak. Reach for novels about loneliness, identity and the question of who to become. Are moved by emotionally precise fiction shaped by memory, place and loss.

by Ben Reeves

€15.99

For fans of Fredrik Backman, Virginia Evans and Lisa Ridzén, an astonishing, deeply moving novel about finding beauty in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death. 'This book will change your life' Joanna Cannon 'One of the most moving books I've read in a long while' Graeme Simsion 'The ending left me speechless' Matthew Quick Travis lives an unassuming life with his cat in a small English town. Travis also happens to be the cosmic force of Death, visiting people in their final days and hours of life, before shepherding them into whatever happens next. He listens to their stories, doesn't judge, and never tries to change anyone's fate... until he meets a young, single midwife called Dalia and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla. As he gets closer to this small, seemingly unremarkable family, Travis begins to learn what it is that makes life so worth living, and so what it is that is irrevocably lost in death. Full of compassion and deep magic, Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt might be a novel about Death, but it's also about the joy of being alive - appreciating each day we have, from the people around us to the strange wonder of our spinning world.

by Finn Óg

€14.99

High-stakes military thriller with a sharp Irish edge, a covert Gulf extraction, a royal woman in danger, and an ex-commando whose past is catching up fast. Sam Ireland was asked to do one last job. He never expected to become the hunted. Sam Ireland wants no part of another covert mission. He has a daughter to protect, a life he's only just holding together, and a past he has no wish to revisit. But when a dangerous extraction pulls him into Saudi Arabia under cover of the America's Cup, Sam is forced back into the world he tried to leave behind. The target keeps changing. The lies multiply. A woman with royal blood is running out of time, and the mission leads from Jeddah to Bahrain and Qatar, through religious police, diplomatic shadows, and enemies who make men disappear. Sam was sent to get someone out - now he has to survive long enough to pull it off. And when the rescue is over, the past he thought he'd buried is waiting in uniform. The Exile is the explosive fifth book in the Sam Ireland series, a fast-paced extraction thriller packed with covert operations, international danger, shifting loyalties, and hard-hitting action. Perfect for readers who want Reacher-style justice with more heart, or Andy McNab with real emotional weight.

by Sara Baume

€15.99

A wholly original narrative, full of beauty and wisdom, about the nature of friendship and art, from an awardwinning Irish author. 'I met Mollie's paintings before I met Mollie.' Shortly after the imposed isolation of the pandemic, Sara Baume came across a painting at a pop-up exhibition in a renovated shed in rural West Cork. It so intrigued her that she was inspired to make contact with the artist. Mollie Douthit, a North Dakotan exile, was living and working alone in a log cabin down a ravaged laneway surrounded by rugged coastline. Sara and Mollie discovered they had much in common - a dysfunctional attitude towards companionship, a devotion to the daily rituals of their respective art practices, an affinity with nature. They started to meet every month for soup and punishing swims in the Atlantic. Sara fell under the spell of Mollie's paintings, pictures that welded memory and reality, and gradually started to write about them, curious as to whether any particular insight might be provided by the intimacy of friendship with the artist, and whether it might be possible to craft a book in the style of the paintings. But what she had not anticipated was that a settled period in her own life would coincide with a period of tumultuous change for Mollie, and soon she found herself squabbling with more complex ideas, about community and nationality, about neurosis and mysticism, about love and pain and the power of art. Ideal for readers who: Prefer quiet literary nonfiction about friendship, art and creative solitude. Connect with reflections on Mollie Douthit, West Cork and post-pandemic connection. Cherish books that notice rituals: soup, swims, painting, conversation and place. Appreciate beautiful, original narratives that resist a conventional memoir shape.

by Jeananne Craig

€16.99

Two sisters. Two messy lives. One idea that's going to fix everything... Sinead is a 'single girl living the dream'. At least, that's what her Tinder profile says. In reality, she's just been fired from the job she pretended was glamorous, her flatmates are fed up with her, and her sister won't answer her calls. Single parent and out-of-work actor Sarah doesn't have the energy to deal with Sinead right now. Her home is, apparently, on the verge of collapse. Repairs are going to cost a fortune and she's counting on her agent to come through for her (her ex certainly won't). When Sarah lands a high-paying movie role 100 miles from home, Sinead has a brainwave that will solve all their problems: she'll take care of her sister's kids in Dublin (what could be easier than keeping two six-year-olds out of trouble?) and Sarah will move into Sinead's house-share in Belfast while she resurrects her career. And possibly even has some fun for a change. But the swap is less straightforward than expected. And as Sarah and Sinead step into each other's lives, they discover that they don't know each other as well as they thought - and maybe have a lot more in common than they realise... Ideal for readers who: Respond to funny Irish fiction about sisters swapping lives and discovering the catch. Lean into messy-family comedy with house-shares, childcare and career panic. Choose stories where a practical solution becomes an emotional reckoning. Appreciate warmth, Belfast-Dublin contrast and chaos that reveals real affection.