What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorVenetia Kelly's Traveling Show
Frank Delaney · 427 pages
The Stolen Child
Lisa Carey · 370 pages
"From the author of the critically acclaimed The Mermaids Singing comes a haunting, luminous novel set on an enchanted island off the west coast of Ireland where magic, faith, and superstition pervade the inhabitants' lives and tangled relationships--perfect for fans of Eowyn Ivey, Sarah Waters, and Angela Carter. May 1959. From one side of St. Brigid's Island, the mountains of Connemara can be gl
The Good People
Hannah Kent · 380 pages
The fires on the hills smouldered orange as the women left, pockets charged with ashes to guard them from the night. Watching them fade into the grey fall of snow, Nance thought she could hear Maggie's voice. A whisper in the dark. "Some folk are born different, Nance. They are born on the outside of things, with a skin a little thinner, eyes a little keener to what goes unnoticed by most. Their h
Reading in the Dark
Seamus Deane · 238 pages
Seamus Deane's first novel is a mesmerizing story of childhood set against the violence of Northern Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. The boy narrator grows up haunted by a truth he both wants and does not want to discover. The matter: a deadly betrayal, unspoken and unspeakable, born of political enmity. As the boy listens through the silence that surrounds him, the truth spreads like a stain unti
A Star Called Henry
Roddy Doyle · 352 pages
Doyle at his best- his portrait of turn-of-the-century Dublin's dark side is masterful. There is a Dickensian richness to language and character' The TimesBorn in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets.
The Last September
Elizabeth Bowen · 283 pages
"In 1920, at their country home in County Cork, Sir Richard Naylor and his wife, Lady Myra, and their friends maintain a skeptical attitude toward the events going on around them, but behind the facade of tennis parties and army camp dances, all know that the end is approaching-- the end of British rule in the south of Ireland and, with it, the demise of a way of life that had survived for centuri
Even the Dead
Benjamin Black · 287 pages
"Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Irish pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head injury caused by a savage beating; all that's needed, the doctor declares, is an extended rest. But Quirke, ever intent on finding his place among the living, is not about to retire. One night duri
Fallen
Lia Mills · 279 pages
Spring 1915, Dublin. Katie Crilly gets the news she dreaded: her beloved twin brother, Liam, has been killed on the Western Front. A year later, when her home city of Dublin is suddenly engulfed in violence, Katie finds herself torn by conflicting emotions. Taking refuge in the home of a friend, she meets Hubie Wilson, a friend of Liam's from the Front. There unfolds a remarkable encounter between
Shade
Neil Jordan · 319 pages
Ireland, 1950. Nina Hardy wakes in the big house where she grew up. Now aged fifty, she has returned to the fading beauty of her old home, and its unkempt gardens, its views of the wild Irish Sea, and its long-buried memories. With her childhood friend George, she is seeking peace from a turbulent world. But by the end of the day, a brutal crime will have been committed, which will alter their liv
The Story of Lucy Gault
William Trevor · 227 pages
"Captain Gault had seen off the three intruders easily enough. They had come in the night with the intention of firing the house, but a single shot had sent them scuttling back into the darkness. One, though, had been wounded and for that the Gaults were not forgiven: sooner or later there would be trouble again. Other big-house families had been driven out - the Morells from Clashmore, the Gouver
A Long Long Way
Sebastian Barry · 292 pages
It seems like a regular field trip to a natural history museum—until Zack gets locked inside for the night and discovers what really goes on in those display cases when no one is watching. A tribe of curious Neanderthals, rampaging woolly mammoths, prehistoric food shortages . . . it's just another wild adventure for Zack!
The Herbalist
Niamh Boyce · 382 pages
"Out of nowhere the herbalist appears and sets up his stall in the market square. Teenager Emily is spellbound by the exotic stranger - here is a man of the world who won't care that she's not respectable. However, Emily has competition for the herbalist's attentions. It seems the women of her small town are all mesmerized by the visitor who, they say, can perform miracles. When Emily discovers th
Return to Killybegs
Sorj Chalandon · 276 pages
Tyrone Meehan, a man vilified as an informer, ekes out his days in Donegal, waiting for his killers to come.
Brooklyn
Colm Toibin · 262 pages
In Ireland in the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one of many who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving behind her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady's intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, t
Confessions of a Pagan Nun
Kate Horsley · 199 pages
Conflict between the Celtics Druids and the Christians led by Saint Patrick in fifth century Ireland, as told by a nun who had earlier herself had a druid's training. While not always historically accurate, it is worth reading for its evocative language and re-creation of a forgotten time.
Hungry Hill
Daphne du Maurier · 402 pages
The story of a deadly curse that afflicted an Irish family for a hundred years. "I tell you your mine will be in ruins and your home destroyed and your children forgotten... but this hill will be standing still to confound you." So curses Morty Donovan when Copper John Brodrick builds his mine at Hungry Hill. The Brodricks of Clonmere gain great wealth by harnessing the power of Hungry Hill
At Swim, Two Boys
Jamie O'Neill · 609 pages
Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—*At Swim, Two Boys* is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill. Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shop
Holy Orders
Benjamin Black, John Banville · 311 pages
When the body of his daughter's friend is brought to his autopsy table, Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of the Irish Church and State.--
Red Sky in Morning
Paul Lynch · 277 pages
"A tense, thrilling debut novel that spans two continents, from "a writer to watch out for" (Colum McCann). It's 1832 and Coll Coyle has killed the wrong man. The dead man's father is an expert tracker and ruthless killer with a single-minded focus on vengeance. The hunt leads from the windswept bogs of County Donegal, across the Atlantic to the choleric work camps of the Pennsylvania Railroad, wh
Ghost Moth
Michele Forbes · 252 pages
Northern Ireland, 1949. Katherine must choose between George Bedford - solid, reliable, devoted George - and Tom McKinley, who makes her feel alive. The reverberations of that summer - of the passions that were spilled, the lies that were told and the bargains that were made - still clamour to be heard in 1969. Northern Ireland has become a tinderbox but tragedy also lurks closer to home. As Kathe