February is here and love is well and truly in the air.
For books that is!
From new releases by Irish authors and debut novels, there truly is something for everyone releasing in bookshops across the country this month.
Banshee: Mythological Irish Women Retold – Edited by Ailbhe Malone
In this spellbinding anthology, Ireland’s most electrifying female writers breathe new life into the women of Irish myth and legend.
For centuries, the women of Irish myth have stood in the shadows of warriors and kings. Until now. In Banshee you’ll find stories of savage queens and defiant mermaids, unruly mothers and women outrunning their destiny – stories pulsing with danger, desire and freedom.
Featuring stories by: Naoise Dolan, Megan Nolan, Jess Kidd, Wendy Erskine, Nikita Gill, Sarah Maria Griffin, Jane Casey, Anne Griffin, Sheila O’Flanagan, and Salma El-Wardany.
Out 26th February
The Island Retreat – Cathy Kelly
Six people gather on a fabulous Greek island, each one hoping that ten days in the sun, writing their life stories, will magically fix their lives. Rose Talisman is pinning it all on a fresh start.
Five years after her career as a tv therapist ended in one catastrophic instant, she is opening a retreat in Corfu. The understated, luxurious Villa Artemis is surrounded by wild pines and sea views.
Just six guests. One week. Time for Rose to help them face their secrets – and move forwards. But Rose has staked everything on the retreat. It has to work – or she loses it all And people’s secrets have a way of revealing themselves in ways no one expected.
Nobody’s past is staying hidden for long…Will that include Rose’s, too?
Out 26th February
Lost Lambs – Madeline Cash
It’s been disastrous since Bud and Catherine opened up their marriage, and none of the Flynns can remember the last time a meal was cooked, a load of laundry done, or a social code abided by.
Their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone – or something – is monitoring the town’s citizens.
Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a nefarious local billionaire. Rumours of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with Alabaster’s machinations sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy – one that may just, finally, bring them closer together.
Out Now
The Lies Between Us – Jen Bray
The warring Brown sisters. Lucy. Susannah. Tara. Each is haunted – by disgrace (Lucy), vanity (Susannah) and envy (Tara). Most of all they are haunted by secrets. Just before a dinner at their mother’s idyllic holiday cottage, Susannah disappears. That same night a young woman is killed violently on a nearby beach.
Amid the confusion the next morning, Lucy discovers a link between Susannah and the murder victim. Lucy must summon all she knows from her short-lived policing career to figure out the connection and find her sister. But tracking down Susannah means Lucy confronting her own shame. It also means resurrecting ghosts that Susannah, Tara – and their mother – desperately want to keep buried.
Even if Lucy finds Susannah, will the truth destroy them all?
Out 26th February
Second Chances – Roisin Meaney
It’s never too late for second chances…For the first time in her life, Lydia is taking a great big leap of faith. She’s moving to a small town on the west coast of Ireland to overhaul a large, long-abandoned residence named Chance House with her new husband. Then tragedy strikes, and Lydia is reminded why she doesn’t take chances.
Suddenly she’s facing a very different prospect: a half-finished ramshackle estate, an overgrown garden, dwindling funds, no-one to turn to – and everywhere she looks, reminders of the love she’s lost. Starting over feels impossible. Staying put feels harder still.
But when the local community rallies around her, and Lydia is unexpectedly reminded of the power of new beginnings, she realises she might just owe it to herself and them to take a second chance on Chance House…
Out Now
Good People – Patmeena Sabit
Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask. The Sharaf family live in an exclusive neighbourhood in Virginia, where the father is a successful businessman and the children attend the most prestigious schools.
Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye. The family’s arrival in America, as refugees from war-torn Afghanistan, feels far behind them. But when Zorah dies in an unthinkable tragedy, everyone is left reeling, and the family is thrust into the court of public opinion.
There is talk that behind closed doors the Sharafs’ happy household was anything but, and soon the veneer of the model immigrant family starts to crumble. Those who knew her best – and those who didn’t know her at all – all have an opinion on who Zorah really was, and what really happened to her.
Out 12th February
In Glass Houses – Edel Coffey
When everyone is looking in, a killer can only hide in plain sight. Twenty years ago, Eddie’s career as a journalist was destroyed by the Juliet Fox case. Juliet was young and beautiful, born into the privileged world of the Manhattan elite.
Pulled into their orbit by her investigation, Eddie discovered how far the rich and powerful are prepared to go when their way of life is threatened. . Eddie has always known that the wrong man was made the scapegoat for Juliet’s murder.
So when a new luxury sky-rise is opened by Juliet’s father, just metres from where her body was discovered two decades before, Eddie can’t resist finding her way in, back into a world where dangerous people operate in the shadows, and anyone might kill to keep a secret safe.
Out 12th February
The Waiting List – Matilda Wilding
Liv has always dreamt of the moment she will hold her own baby. But just at the moment her new life – as a devoted mother to Max, a loving wife to Justin – should be starting, it looks like it may be ending. An undiagnosed heart condition, worsened by her pregnancy, has thrown her whole future into doubt. If she doesn’t receive an urgent transplant, she won’t live much longer.
As she grows weaker, her determination to raise her baby grows stronger. Without her to protect him, what future does Max face? Slowly Liv begins to ask herself a terrible question: she needs someone’s healthy heart to replace her failing one.
For that to happen, an accident would have to befall someone else. But what if she could engineer that accident herself? What if she could choose someone to die in order that she could live?
Out 26th February
Laws of Love and Logic – Debra Curtis
1976, Rhode Island. Lily has two loves. There’s the boy, in whom she finds a kindred spirit. And then there’s Jane, her brilliant but troubled younger sister and best friend.
Lily has a plan. She’ll graduate, go to college, marry her high-school sweetheart and start a family of her own, her future unfolding before her as a bright, clear path. But the laws of love and logic are not as simple as Lily thinks.
When one fateful night throws Lily’s life on an entirely new course, she’ll discover just how fragile the futures are that we so carefully plan and imagine for ourselves. Because the universe has a plan of its own – and what seems to be the end of one great love story might just be the beginning of another…
Out 17th February