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Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Our reviewers' picks for the best books to deck out your shelves...and suitcases this summer
Literary Fiction Anthony Cummins FULFILLMENT by Lee Cole (Faber £18.99, 336pp) I loved this sharp, funny American novel about half-brothers whose buried grudges surface when one beds the other's wife. Sibling rivalry gives way to page-turning jeopardy when their MAGA-loving mum gifts one of them a loaded gun. It's a tale of lust, envy, revenge . . . told with warmth and killer comic timing. FUN AND GAMES by John Patrick McHugh (4th Estate £16.99, 400pp) Set over a single summer, this hilarious Irish debut follows a 17-year-old school leaver riddled with social anxiety as his teammates at a Gaelic football club jostle for bragging rights about sexual experience. You root for the protagonist – yet wince, too, at his relentlessly self-sabotaging errors of judgment. A brilliant book, tender and fizzy with wit and vim. Stephanie Cross THE BEST OF EVERYTHING by Kit de Waal (Tinder Press £20, 320pp) From the depths of her grief and hatred for the man who killed her lover, we follow the St Kitts-born nurse Paulette on a transformative personal journey, giving rise to acts of extraordinary kindness and compassion. Truly heart-expanding. THE NAMES by Florence Knapp (Phoenix £16.99, 352pp) One of the most anticipated debuts of the year, Knapp's ultimately life-affirming story spins three possible futures for domestic abuse victim Cora and her newborn son. While there are some near unbearable moments, I devoured it almost in a sitting. Claire Allfree Water in the Desert, Fire in the Night by Gethan Dick (Tramp Press £14, 220pp) 'It's only by imagining very very small that we carry on thinking we know what the future holds,' says the narrator of this punchy, deceptively soft-focus dystopia. A pandemic, untold numbers dead, an assorted bunch of survivors and their journey to an apparent sanctuary in the South of France make for a refreshing look at ideas of hope, survival and complacency, and an unsettlingly resonant debut. Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape £18.99, 368pp) One of the year's best novels to date, this is the story of Istvan, as his life moves from a Hungarian housing estate to the enclaves of extreme wealth before tragedy threatens everything. Szalay writes in a stark, emotionless prose that captures something of the modern alienation of the age; it's also an excellent novel about masculinity and money. Crime & Thrillers Geoffrey Wansell The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney (Zaffre £16.99, 416pp) Gordon and Sarah Rutherford have everything – a son they adore, Rory, a house on the beach in Ayrshire and a happy life, until one day Rory disappears. Their lives don't disintegrate at once, not while there's hope, but what should Gordon do? This is McIlvanney at his masterful best. King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Headline £20, 352pp) Roman Carruthers is summoned home to central Virginia after his father, who runs the local crematorium, has been in a car crash – leaving him in a coma. Only it wasn't an accident. His family are in trouble and Roman sets out to rescue them – but at a price. Cosby sends a shiver down the spine. Some of Us are Liars by Fiona Cummins (Macmillan £18.99, 384pp) Three sisters from Essex, the eldest a Hollywood star, lie at the heart of Cummins' story about the disappearance of a young son and the lies that hide beneath what seems to be the perfect family. Sad, tense and deeply poignant, it is truly thrilling. The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (Hemlock £18.99, 368pp) Married couple Edward and Isabel, in their early 30s, suffer a terrifying home invasion when an intruder breaks in and rapes Isabel after subduing her husband in another room. The story of what happens to them over the next 20 years is both haunting and terrifying: never to be forgotten. Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow (Swift £20, 544pp) Prosecuting attorney Rusty Sabich – star of Turow's breakout thriller Presumed Innocent – makes his reappearance after almost 40 years. This time he is a judge coaxed out of retirement to defend the stepson of his new love against a murder charge. This is every bit as good as its brilliant predecessor. Wendy Holden The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday £20, 384pp) Vic Kemp, famous artist, has a mysterious late-life romance. His children think the woman is a gold-digger. Then he dies in strange circumstances and they rush to Italy to confront her. But is Bella-Mae as bad as they imagine, and what are the rest of them hiding anyway? This complex, clever, beautiful novel is my favourite Rachel Joyce so far. Julie Tudor Is Not A Psychopath by Jennifer Holdich (Hodder & Stoughton £20, 320pp) But she is the anti-heroine of this funny debut. If you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you'll love this tale of crazed love in a Cardiff office. Julie's mad about Sean but he has other romantic interests, all of whom meet mysterious ends. Narrator Julie explains everything from her own very special point of view. You'll cringe, laugh and feel sorry for her in equal measure. Bad Influence by C. J. Wray (Orion £20, 336pp) Jinx is a woman with an exciting past now retired to a Home Counties village. A secretive sort, she's not pleased to have to go on a community bus trip to Tuscany. But there's unfinished wartime business there, and possibly a bit of buried treasure, too. Hilarious. Sci-Fi & Fantasy Jamie Buxton The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Orbit £20, 432pp) Dr Walden is de facto head of a boarding school where magic is very much on the agenda, as are demons of every stripe, adolescent growing pains, monstrous perils and grown-up romance. A boarding school adventure, an exploration of magic, a meditation on ageing . . . and a book to fall in love with. One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford (Tor Nightfire £22.99, 352pp) Kesta is a messed up thirtysomething scientist working on a Zombie Apocalypse cure in a secret lab. But that's nothing compared to what she's hiding. Setting this zombie story apart is its deep dive into the mysteries of the human heart. Gripping, grisly and wonderfully written. Strange Houses by Uketsu (translated by Jim Rion) (Pushkin Vertigo £14.99, 208pp) A couple of friends stumble on a murder mystery and the only clues lie in a series of detailed, hard-edged architectural plans. The closer they look, the more bonkers the truth appears to be. Original and compelling, the book carves out a space between horror, crime and fantasy. Debuts Sara Lawrence Luminous by Silvia Park (Magpie £16.99, 400pp) In post-war Seoul, two decades after the reunification of Korea, this sci-fi novel describes a place where robots are completely integrated into society – albeit as second-class citizens. Estranged siblings Jun and Morgan reunite to solve the disappearance of a child robot and all kinds of secrets are revealed. It's beautiful on love and what it means to be human. Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle (Bloomsbury £16.99, 400pp) Teenage Konstantin is missing his dead dad madly when the unmistakable taste of his father's favourite meal fills his mouth. Soon he is bombarded by flavours and discovers that he has a unique ability to communicate with ghosts through food. By cooking the dishes of the dead, Konstantin can bring them back for a final meal. Twisty, dark and unique. Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis (W&N £16.99, 336pp) Nadia works in Iraq for a UN programme rehabilitating Isis brides. She left London after being disowned by her religious mother and dumped by the love of her life. Nadia thought a dramatic change of scene would alter everything but life remains tough until she meets Sara, a Londoner who joined Isis as a teenager. Funny and insightful. Classic Crime Barry Turner Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon (Penguin Design Collection £9.99, 208pp) This splendid new edition of the Simenon classics has the Chief Inspector enjoying the sea air until he is told of a dying woman's delirious confession of complicity to murder. Following his instinct, Maigret challenges the suffocating hypocrisy of tightly knit society to uncover a tragic story of passion and jealousy. Cyanide in the Sun Edited by Martin Edwards (British Library £10.99, 320pp) One of the top experts in classic crime, Edwards has delved into the archives for this hugely enjoyable collection of mysteries with a holiday theme. Though many of the authors have long disappeared from print, they are worthy of rediscovery, not least as a warning against swimming too far from the beach. Against the Grain by Peter Lovesey (Little Brown £21.99, 368pp) In the last Peter Diamond book, the acerbic head of Bath CID exposes a miscarriage of justice. After hosting a wild party, the daughter of a wealthy landowner goes down for manslaughter. But Diamond believes that the supposed criminal neglect was a planned killing with the murderer still at large. This is police procedural at its best. Sara Lawrence So Thrilled for You by Holly Bourne (Hodder & Stoughton £16.99, 432pp) Set at the baby shower from hell, this rollercoaster read stars Lauren, Nicki, Charlotte and Steffi, best friends from university who are now in their early 30s and experiencing different life stages. There's an arson attack and a lot of judgment. The narrative alternates between their points of view alongside police reports and newspaper articles about what happened. Sensational. Favourite Daughter by Morgan Dick (Viking £16.99, 352pp) This is a hilarious, heartbreaking and original story about sisters Mickey and Arlo. They share a recently deceased father but have never met. Arlo loved him to distraction; Mickey blamed him for everything. Arlo is as surprised to be cut out of his will as Mickey is to receive everything – on one condition. It's unethical, unwise and utterly addictive. Who Wants to Live Forever by Hanna Thomas Uose (Brazen £16.99, 320pp) Young married couple Sam and Yuki are madly in love. Sam is an illustrator and Yuki campaigns against Yareta, a new drug that delivers eternal youth and is the subject of mass debate. The global divide between those who are on Yareta and those ageing is vast and terrifying. When Sam goes behind Yuki's back their bond is destroyed. Clever and compelling. Psychos Christena Appleyard The Palazzo by Kayte Nunn (No Exit Press £9.99, 304pp) This book transports you to a luxurious palazzo in the Italian Alps with a dreamy swimming pool and an equally dreamy handsome chef. It's the perfect setting for a summer read; and for an unusual murder. The glamorous hostess is celebrating her 40th birthday and she has invited a group of special friends, all of whom have secrets. Clever, glitzy and keeps you guessing. It's Always The Husband by C.L. Taylor (Avon £16.99, 352pp) Ignoring the gossip at the school gate, newcomer mother Jude gets involved with a single father whose former partners are now dead or vanished. There's a powerful sense of jeopardy as Jude gets drawn in and her new man refuses to dispel the gossip. A great title that doesn't disappoint. The Serial Killer's Party by Amy Cunningham (Penguin £8.99, 336pp) Amelia accepts an invitation to a billionaire's party in Norway because she believes she can solve the mystery of her sister's murder. But the billionaire has his own sinister plans. This combines luxury and escapist scenery with real psychological insights into the bonds that bind sisters. Eithne Farry The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury £18.99, 464pp) Set at the tail end of the War Of The Roses, and jam-packed with plot and counter-plot, Harkin's stand-out debut makes the best of the role Lambert Simnel, a farmer's boy, as pretender to the English throne. Ambitious, mischievous and brilliantly written, her boldly drawn characters and their reckless, ruthless aspirations make for a hugely entertaining read. The Artist by Lucy Steeds (Michael Joseph £16.99, 304pp) THE height of summer in 1920s Provence is a place of honeyed heat and slow-burn attraction. This is the intense, beautifully realised tale of reclusive painter Tata, his put-upon niece Ettie, who's living a secret artistic life of her own, and aspiring writer Joseph, who finds himself drawn into their tempestuous, luminous orbit in this smouldering book. Rapture by Emily Maguire (Sceptre £20, 320pp) See-sawing between seductive sensuality and religious asceticism, Rapture unspools the story of the legendary Joan, who begins life in 9th-century Mainz as motherless Agnes. Determined to forge a future that encompasses her love of theology and her own provocative beliefs, she binds her breasts and heads out on an adventure that will see her become scholar, preacher and eventually, the pope.
Irish Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh: highly promising debut by a big talent
Fun and Games Author : John Patrick McHugh ISBN-13 : 978-0008517342 Publisher : Fourth Estate Guideline Price : £16.99 John Patrick McHugh's first novel begins with a teenage boy and a teenage girl, alone in the woods on a summer afternoon, engaging in what puritanical educators used to call 'heavy petting'. 'His finger was burrowing inside her. They were kissing and then they were doing this. He was the horniest, he was seventeen.' The scene is a tease, in several senses. Neither boy nor girl at this point get anywhere, so to speak ('My arm's gone dead'). And the unwary reader is led by such an overture to expect from Fun and Games a comedy about the squirm-inducing hopes and humiliations of teenage sexuality, in the vein of Martin Amis's The Rachel Papers or the TV series The Inbetweeners. But this isn't at all what Fun and Games is up to. To begin with, more than 100 pages pass before we get another sex scene – though, of course, like the teenagers we're reading about, we keep fruitlessly expecting one. The book's viewpoint character, in whose company and consciousness we spend a chunky 390 pages, is John Masterson, who is in the middle of his 'pivotal' post-Leaving Cert summer. The year is 2009. John lives on an island off the coast of Mayo. He hangs out with the lads (Rooney, Studzy), and works shifts in the local hotel restaurant, the Island Head. He has been freshly called up as half-back for the local senior Gaelic team. The girl in the woods is Amber, who also works in the hotel restaurant. Amber is 19 and appears to John's gauche male gaze enigmatic to the point of impenetrability. Will they? Won't they? [ 'It's a very hard time to be young': author John Patrick McHugh on male adolescence Opens in new window ] This is very familiar material. But the contemporary Irish novel that Fun and Games might most closely remind you of is Louise Kennedy's Trespasses , another novel that takes a suite of apparently familiar characters and a bog-standard narrative framework and subjects them to intense pressures of empathy and perception in order to produce something luminous, a carefully fashioned object. Which is to say that McHugh is no mere grey stenographer of middling provincial dreams but a stylist, a shaper of the world in prose. READ MORE Like all beginning stylists, he has his ascensions and his wobbles. But when he's good, he's great. More or less the first thing we hear about John's mother, Yvonne, is that a private photograph texted to her illicit lover has done the rounds of the whole island. Here's John's reaction: 'He had studied his mother's tits. Much like any milfy duo obtained from the internet – fingertip nipples, blue veins etched like lightning bolts – but devastatingly his mother's. John hated her, and the whole Masterson family, and for a time everyone alive.' 'Milfy duo' is good – perhaps a tiny bit too good, actually – but it's the adverb, 'devastatingly,' and the rueful retrospection of 'for a time everyone alive' that bumps this particular riff up into a space above mere cringe comedy. Here is McHugh's method in miniature: the prose fireworks are almost always at the service of the book's large project, which is to use the resources of a tightly curbed irony to usher us into the mind of a young man who doesn't yet know how to be in the world. More gorgeous touches: the 'blemished cotton' of roadside sheep; John's conception of having a future at all is 'The wrong shape, like the plug sockets in Spain'; of a local girl: 'Her mother was from somewhere not Ireland'; on the ways in which the ambient culture finds its way into your mind: 'A yellow-reg zoomed by and John thought, passively: English wanker'; a drunk John tries to express his anger: 'it was hard to fully recall the intricacies to why John was so in the correct'; a joint, burning, is 'gold, apricot'. Also remarkable is that Fun and Games is unapologetically and prismatically about being a heterosexual teenage boy: ashamed of your constant horniness, finding the remarks of women completely baffling, discovering genuinely meaningful forms of physical expression out on the pitch with the other lads, wanking over classical paintings when nothing else is available, fretting about your body more or less exactly as young women do (preparing for a night out, John inquires of his friends, 'And I don't look fat, do I?'), McHugh renders with pointillist care John's inner and outer worlds, until the character stands clear. It isn't perfect. It's too long. It veers too thoroughly away from the dangers and rewards of opening out into other minds, other worlds. There is a sense that this big talent, first time out, has bitten off slightly less than it can chew. Next time, I suspect, things will be different. In the meantime, here is a first novel by a writer with gifts to spare. Kevin Power is associate professor of literary practice in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin
Irish Times
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
‘It's a very hard time to be young': author John Patrick McHugh on male adolescence
'It's a mad way of being, adolescence,' says Galway writer John Patrick McHugh. 'Sometimes I think I'd love to do it again and then I think of the stress of being a 14-year-old and how bad you can feel and I'm glad it's over.' McHugh has hit zeitgeist gold with his debut novel, Fun and Games. 'It's a really tough time,' says McHugh, now 33, of male adolescence, the subject of his novel. 'I can't imagine what it's like to do it now with internet and phones because curating your life for an outsider's perspective is an awful way to live.' We're in a coffee shop in Galway's west end, a suitably hip location for such a vaunted young writer as McHugh (The Observer anointed him one of their Best Debut Novelists of 2025). Fun and Games is freighted with the most treacherous of teenage landmines – sex-related public humiliation, loss of face, sporting competition and enough insecurity to sink a ship. The book begins with its protagonist, also called John, who has recently earned the nickname Tits thanks to a naked selfie of his mother that has been circulating the small island where he lives. It's the perfect entry point into the crucible of male adolescence. READ MORE McHugh wanted to be brutally honest about adolescence. 'I read coming-of-age novels and thought, That's not what I went through. I didn't drink red wine, you know, I drank Buckfast,' he says, laughing. 'I was interested in exploring that and I hadn't seen it for my generation. I wanted to get into it. I wanted to show masculinity, and youth, as raw as I could.' I didn't want [my characters] to be these macho silent boys. They do love each other — McHugh on Fun and Games McHugh has written about the subject of male adolescence before, both in personal essays and in his 2021 collection of short stories, Pure Gold . In fact, two of the characters, along with the island setting, already appeared in a short story in Pure Gold, although McHugh says they are different characters in the novel. He says he wanted to be honest about the kind of insecurities young men and boys struggle with. One striking aspect of the book is its exploration of negative male body image, something McHugh himself experienced as a teenager. 'I was always a big guy. I was overweight when I was eight, nine, 10 ... and that complex has always stayed with me. I'm sure weight issues were way more common than I thought. I'm sure I'm not the only one who never wanted to take off their shirt, but it was never talked about ... I remember being very frightened about being overweight, very worried about it. It affected me. It was tough. I played sports and I still had that fear of taking off your shirt, showing your body. I think it's natural and it's hard.' He sees teenagers now in the gym, and is conflicted about the focus on sculpting bodies. 'A part of me is like, fair play, but another part of me is like, you're 15 or 16, have fun, don't worry about this. It's a very hard time to be young, and I know this is a trite example, but Instagram is so fake. The things you see there are lies, and yet you see them as if they're truth, and your idea of what's good is messed up by these mirages.' [ John Patrick McHugh: Maeve Binchy, Lenin and me Opens in new window ] He wrote about his own teenage issues around body image for the Stinging Fly, in which he described going so far as to make himself sick after eating. 'Thankfully it wasn't destructive. It wasn't an everyday thing.' While the book is full of humour – much of it linked to the all-consuming goal of divesting oneself of one's virginity – it also offers a heart-rending insight into the fragility and insecurities of young Irish men. While sex is at the fore of the book, male friendship and love are at its heart. His description of how young men express their love for each other in the absence of the ability to express that love verbally is very skilfully done. Does he think not being able to talk about things is a problem among young men? 'I didn't want [my characters] to be these macho silent boys. They do love each other and have affection for each other and they'd go to war for each other and yet they are also incredibly cruel to each other and to other people, and yet they're also self-conscious. Male friendship is very interesting to me because it's so dramatic. Boys don't talk to each other for months and then one small apology and they're back being best friends. Those hysterics of masculinity are so interesting to me – the love at the heart of it. Boys get really intimate and touchy-feely with each other when they're drunk, or even just having a good time, or in sports, that comes into it too. I did talk to my friends about heartache and stuff like that. They were stilted conversations but they were still conversations, and there was an arm around the shoulder.' As much as the book is about the male experience, it also has some intriguing female characters, including Amber, John's sort-of girlfriend, and his mother, Yvonne, of the selfie infamy. In her determined and unashamed pursuit of her own passions (among them a brilliantly specific passion for painting pictures of elves and gnomes) she acts as a foil to the boys' extreme anxieties about expressing their individuality. 'I wanted to get as close to the bone of what peer pressure and social order can do to a boy, how wobbly it can make him in terms of how he views women as a result of that.' In the book John worries a lot about what people think of him, to the extent that he is willing to sabotage his own happiness for peer approval. 'John is riddled with social fear, and what people think about him – what do people think of his mother, what does the manager think of him in GAA, what does Amber think, what do his friends think. One of the hardest things about being a teenager is being able to say I am who I am, which is a really powerful and brave thing to do, and sometimes it doesn't happen for people until their twenties, thirties or forties.' I loved the Beano and Captain Underpants. I wasn't reading Tolstoy when I was 12 He says his character is an insecure, frustrated guy. 'I'd like to think at heart he's a good guy but he is someone who lashes out and does things that hurt people because he fears the boys. That hierarchy of who's number one is so pronounced in secondary school and you don't want to be near the bottom.' Much of this ranking is sorted out through sporting prowess. When John and his friends aren't vying for dominance in the sexual arena, they are competing for a spot on the senior Gaelic football team (McHugh himself played the sport), and almost as much of the book's disappointment, passion and heartache takes place on the pitch as it does in teenage bedrooms. McHugh grew up in Cork, moving around a lot because of his father's work in the bank, before the family returned to Galway and settled there when he was 12. Unusually for a writer, he didn't harbour childhood dreams of literary greatness. 'I loved the Beano and Captain Underpants,' he says, laughing. 'I wasn't reading Tolstoy when I was 12. I was reading the things you're meant to read. Being a writer was never in my sphere. I never thought that was a path for me even though I loved English and writing essays.' When it came to choosing a degree, he opted for a then-new course in NUI Galway, BA Connect with Creative Writing. On his first day of class he felt out of his depth. When asked what his favourite novel was, he said The Witches by Roald Dahl. 'Shocking,' he says with a laugh, before adding, 'It is a great book.' He learned discipline from the mentorship of writers such as Mike McCormack and he has also taken an applied MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia and an MFA in creative writing at UCD. [ Sally Rooney and John Patrick McHugh at Cúirt festival Opens in new window ] He hasn't started work on his next novel yet but says there will be one, and when it is ready he has a crack team of some of the best writers in Ireland to critique it. When McHugh was an aspiring writer in his twenties, Thomas Morris, then editor of the Stinging Fly, put him in touch with a few other young writers who were also trying to write in a serious way. That group included Sally Rooney, Nicole Flattery and Michael Magee, among others. 'Sally's a wonderful person so we just became really good friends,' he says. 'The same with Mickey and Nicole. I think Tom put us together because he knew we were serious. I didn't get published again for another three or four years. I'm thinking now: How did I get the confidence? I think it helped to have that group with whom I could exchange work. I look back at that time and think wow, fair play, we stuck at it, we did it, you know. Sally is still the person I share work with, and her success is unbelievable. Irish writing in general inspires me. I think we're so good.' Fun and Games is published by 4th Estate
Irish Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Jane Casey and Stuart Neville shortlisted
In The Irish Times this Saturday, John Patrick McHugh tells Edel Coffey about his debut novel, Fun and Games. And there is a Q&A with Lisa Harding about her latest novel, The Wildelings. Reviews are Oliver Farry on The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East Fawaz A Gerges; Karlin Lillington on Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams; Daniel McLaughlin on Life in Spite of Everything by Victoria Donovan; Edel Coffey on The Marriage Vendetta by Caroline Madden; Frank Wynne on the best new fiction in translation; John Boyne on Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin; Daniel Geary on Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972 by Forest Issac Jones; Ray Burke on Becoming Irish American by Timothy J Meagher; Helen Cullen on The Wildelings by Lisa Harding; Paraic O'Donnell on Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt; and Kevin Power on Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh. This weekend's Irish Times Eason offer is The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, just €5.99, a €6 saving. Eason offer Jane Casey and Stuart Neville have been longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025. Casey has been recognised for A Stranger in the Family and Neville for Blood Like Mine. Also shortlisted is Birmingham Irish author Marie Tierney for Deadly Animals. READ MORE Three former winners are vying for top honours at this year's Awards, including 2023 champion M.W. Craven, who is longlisted for his adrenaline-fuelled US-set thriller The Mercy Chair, alongside Chris Whitaker for All the Colours of the Dark, a million-copy bestseller exploring the aftermath of a childhood kidnapping, and Chris Brookmyre for the highly original thriller, The Cracked Mirror, which sees a hard-bitten homicide detective and an old lady who has solved multiple murders in her sleepy village, crack an impossible case. Highly commended in 2023, Elly Griffiths receives an impressive tenth longlisting for The Last Word, a murder mystery set at a writers' retreat. Readers are now encouraged to vote for their favourite novels to reach the shortlist, with the winner crowned on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on July 17th. * Tickets for the Belfast Book Festival are now on sale with a packed programme of poetry, fiction, crime writing, journalism, screenwriting, plus developmental opportunities and expert-led discussions and workshops. The 15th edition of the Festival will run from June 5th-12th at The Crescent Arts Centre in south Belfast. Highlights include Game of Thrones star Kristain Nairn and his new book that documents life on the set of one of the world's most popular TV shows, Sam McAlister former BBC Newsnight producer and author of Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews, as well as many other author events from Joseph O'Connor, Wendy Erskine, Tessa Hadley, Eimear McBride, Luke Harding, Darran Anderson, Eoin McNamee, Roddy Doyle, Andrea Carter, Neil Hegarty, Noreen Masud, Claire Lynch, Roisin O'Donnell, Jan Carson, Gráinne O'Hare and Thomas Morris among others. As ever, there will be a celebration of emerging talent with the announcement of the Mairtín Crawford Awards. Festival commemorative events will honour Michael Longley and Edna O'Brien. Art lovers should check out The Art of Translation, the festival's exhibition that offers a fantastic snapshot of international book design via leading Irish writers, presented in collaboration with Literature Ireland. Tickets can be be found at * The Shaking Bog festival hosts a one-day programme of events in the Glencree Valley, Co Wicklow, on May 17th, featuring a Dawn Chorus Walk with Sean Ronayne, Moth Magic with Ciarán Finch, Exploring the River Valley with Martha Burton, Wildflowers & Pollinators with Prof Jane Stout, 'What is Wild?' a talk by Mark Cocker and in conversation with Ella McSweeney, and a Concert & Reading with Jane Robinson, Lynda O'Connor & Ailbhe McDonagh. Booking is essential - The Shaking Bog Festival is embarking on a new project. Entitled Riverscapes, this creative exploration of place, heritage and nature will run from May to October. Riverscapes is a place-based initiative which will celebrate, enliven and inform the communities of both people and nature that live in and around the Glencree and Dargle Rivers. And, in turn, share this experience with the wider world. The Riverscapes project will culminate with a new film by acclaimed local film-maker Alan Gilsenan - that will not only draw on the people and habitats of this richly diverse community but will also belong to that community. It is a film that will hopefully reflect life at its most local whilst also mirroring the universal. * Penguin, Sandycove is to publish Andy Farrell's autobiography, The Only Way I Know, on October 16th. Publisher Michael McLoughlin said : " Andy Farrell is rightly seen on these islands as one of the most remarkable sports people and coaches of all time. He has played and been hugely successful in both rugby codes and as a successful coach he has brought the Ireland team to the top of the world rankings and to consecutive Six Nations championship titles. The Lions tour to Australia this summer, under his leadership, will hopefully be another highlight. I am delighted to publish this book, which is as stellar as his career." Farrell said: 'It has been a really interesting and enjoyable process reflecting on my life and career, and working with Gavin Mairs to bring it all together. I have tried to be honest and true to myself, and I hope that is reflected in the book.' * For the third consecutive year, Denis Shaughnessy, writing under the pseudonym Marco Ocram, has won First Prize for Humour at the Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA) in the United States. This literary hat-trick crowns Ocram's 'Awful Truth' series of metafictional satires. Each of the three novels has now won the top prize in the humour category, a rare feat in the world of indie and international publishing. 'I was thrilled to win once, amazed to win twice, and by the third time I thought perhaps the judges needed checking,' joked Shaughnessy. 'But really, it's an honour to see readers and critics connect with something so deliberately absurd.' The awards, held annually in Washington state, draw thousands of entries from across the globe, celebrating excellence in independent and small press publishing. * Waterford Council is running the annual Molly Keane Creative Writing Award. This is a short story competition in memory of the Irish author. The stories must be 2,000 words or less, and entries must be in by noon on May 19th. Entries are only accepted via this link . * The Dublin Small Press Fair has opened a call for applications from publishers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, experimental literature, literary journals, artists' books, zines, chapbooks, broadsides, and more. The first annual fair, organised by Tim Groenland and Éireann Lorsung, will take place over two days in November in Pearse Street Library (with support from Dublin Unesco City of Literature). The fair will celebrate small-scale publishing in Ireland as well as welcoming small presses from abroad, showcasing the innovative and experimental work of small literary presses while providing a space of connection in which publishers can share knowledge and develop relationships. It will feature readings, launches, panels, and exhibitions alongside many tables of books and book-adjacent work from about thirty small and independent presses, journals, book binders, zine makers, and more. Applications are free, and the deadline is July 1st. See for more information. * John Connolly, Marita Conlon-McKenna and Elaine Feeney, will be interviewed over three separate evenings in Kennys Bookshop, Galway in May, to celebrate the launch of their new books. Tickets are available now on On May 1st, crime fiction writer John Connolly will be interviewed about his new novel, The Children of Eve, the latest instalment in his bestselling Charlie Parker series. On May 15th, Marita Conlon-McKenna will be launching her Children of The Famine Trilogy of novels (Under the Hawthorn Tree, Wildflower Girl and Fields of Home), published in one volume for the very first time! She will be joined in conversation by bookseller and author Gráinne O'Brien. Award-winning Galway poet and novelist Elaine Feeney will be launching her new novel, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way on May 27th in conversation with Sarah Kenny. Feeney's previous novel How to Build a Boat was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. Tickets are free but limited. To book, visit * Marty Whelan will launch Killester: from medieval manor to garden suburb by Joseph Brady & Ruth McManus on Tuesday, April 29th at 7.30pm in Killester Donnycarney Football Club, Hadden Park, Killester, Dublin 5. * The Seamus Heaney HomePlace has launched its summer programme. Highlights include comedian Frank Skinner in conversation with Belfast-based poet Scott McKendry on June 27th talking about his love of poetry, as evidenced in his acclaimed Poetry Podcast which is now in its tenth series. On August 10th, Kabosh Theatre Company presents Julie - a new one-woman play written and performed by Charlotte McCurry. Set in West Belfast in 1981, it follows a teenage girl as she navigates the loss of her sister and her family's struggle for justice. Author events include Eimear McBride (May 29th); Nathan Thrall (June 2nd); Glenn Patterson (10th); Paul Lynch (14th); On June 25th, Patterson welcome this year's Seamus Heaney Centre Fellows, author Jan Carson, poet Fiona Benson, and screenwriters Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn (Blue Lines) for what promises to be a lively conversation, offering insight into the lives and work of these four exceptional writers. The 160th birthday of WB Yeats on June 13th is marked with a performance of Sailing to Byzantium, original songs set to 12 of Yeats's poems, performed by Christine Toibin. Following a sell-out performance last year, Ruairi Conaghan returns with his one-man show Lies Where It Falls on June 19th. Finally, on August 30th, HomePlace presents a storytelling brunch: Cloak of Wisdom, featuring Liz Weir, Vicky McParland and Anne Harper.
Daily Mail
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
'In 20 years of reviewing, I'm not sure I've read a funnier book, or one I've enjoyed more': The best Literary Fiction out now - FUN AND GAMES by John Patrick McHugh, VANISHING WORLD by Sayaka Murata, OPEN, HEAVEN by Sean Hewitt
FUN AND GAMES by John Patrick McHugh (4th Estate £14.99, 400pp) I HAD a blast with this super-smart novel about a 17-year-old Gaelic footballer, John, navigating parental break-up after his mother is caught messaging a lover with a picture of her breasts. McHugh filters the story through the hormone-addled mind of his school-leaver protagonist, first seen as a younger boy in the story collection Pure Gold, also set on a remote island west of Ireland. Time and again, John scuppers his own burgeoning love life because of how often he lets his actions be dictated by neurotic fretting over what his pals think, rather than what he actually wants himself. As a mechanism for gripping tragicomedy, that's pretty much unbeatable, and in 20 years of reviewing, I'm not sure I've read a funnier book, or one I've enjoyed more. VANISHING WORLD by Sayaka Murata (Granta £16.99, 240pp) Japanese fiction leads a boom in translated novels and Murata is its queen, striking a chord around the world with her weird tales of urban alienation under patriarchy and capitalism (see Convenience Store Woman). It probably doesn't hurt that her books are short and easy to read as well as fit to burst with eye-popping twists and conceits. The latest is no exception, set in a parallel Japan where marital sex is taboo and it's a mark of shame for the heroine to learn that she was conceived not via IVF but through 'primitive copulation'. We follow her into middle age as she learns to manage her own outlawed lust in a society favouring 'clean love' with cartoon characters (really). A typically wild ride, even if you sense satire standing in for the pleasures of a good story. OPEN, HEAVEN by Sean Hewitt (Jonathan Cape £18.99, 240pp) Hewitt, an acclaimed poet, makes his fiction debut with this hushed slow-burner about a gay man drawn back in time to a devastating teenage crush now that his marriage is on the rocks. Returning to the village where he grew up, the narrator recalls a summer during his shy adolescence in the early 2000s, when he lusted after Luke, a more streetwise teen who turned up at a local farm in flight from his chaotic upbringing. A novel built on watching, lingering, hoping, it's rich and intense as well as ever so slightly solemn, with lush descriptions of the rural setting relied on for mood music. As a tale of thwarted yearning, it feels curiously out of time, as if it might have been written at any point over the past half-century, which perhaps tells its own story.
