The Rose Garden

by Marita McKenna

Molly’s perfect life comes crashing down following the unexpected death of her husband David. She is left alone with a big old house to maintain, finances in disarray and her hopes for happiness in a heap. But Molly is a survivor. Despite objections from her two daughters, Molly fears that the only solution will be to sell their beloved home. But as she finds herself drawn to the old neglected and overgrown walled rose garden and the dilapidated gardener’s cottage attached, shesuddenly sees a future as shedecides to restore them.

As the rose garden takes on a new life and starts to bloom again, Molly finds that she can look to the future with new confidence and hope.

The Scrap

by Gene Kerrigan

In the last hours of the 1916 Easter Rising, 20-year old Charlie Saurin came face to face with his Commander-in-Chief, Patrick Pearse.

In a final gamble, Pearse had a desperate plan to save the collapsing rebellion.

It required the sacrifice of Saurin and his comrades.

The Scrap is the true story of the rising, from first-hand evidence, as seen by one rebel unit - F Company, 2nd Battalion - following them from the first skirmish in Fairview to the inferno of the GPO.

Told in the context of some of the major events of that week, the story of F Company brings alive the excitement, the humour, the horror and the contradictions of that decisive moment in the creation of the Irish state.

The Sheridans' Guide to Cheese

by Kevin and Seamus Sheridan with Catherine Cleary

Winner of BEST COOKBOOK, IRELAND, at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards


Kevin and Seamus Sheridan first started selling cheese from a market stall in Galway over twenty years ago. As passionate advocates of local farming and champions of high quality food production, the brothers soon developed a reputation for selling the very best cheeses from around the world.

Today, the award-winning Sheridans Cheesemongers has become something of a byword for cheese, sourcing and selling the world’s best cheeses to customers across the globe.

In their first book, The Sheridans’ Guide to Cheese, Kevin and Seamus share their expert knowledge and invite you on a journey through the vast array of cheeses that adorn their shelves.

From the cheese peninsulas of West Cork and the cheddar caves of Somerset to the hills of Reggia Emilia, the brothers introduce us to some of the best cheesemakers in the world, revealing how their favourite cheeses are made, whilst offering heaps of practical advice on selecting, buying, aging and storing each variety of cheese.

An indispensable handbook for both novice cheeselovers and mature connoisseurs alike, The Sheridans’ Guide to Cheese is a complete guide to the cheeses of the world, featuring tasting notes, wine- and flavour-pairings and delicious recipes to help you appreciate every cheese you try.

The Shoemaker and his Daughter

by Conor O'Clery

In the Soviet Union in 1962, shoemaker Stanislav Suvorov is imprisoned for five years. His crime? Selling a car for profit. Thirty years later, his daughter Zhanna is helping to unravel the very laws that sent her father to prison. In the new Russia, yesterday’s crime is today’s opportunity.

The Shoemaker and His Daughter takes in seventy years of Soviet and Russian history through the prism of one family. The Suvorovs – Stanislav, his wife Marietta, and their daughters Zhanna and Larisa – lived a relatively comfortable life in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, until the social shame of Stanislav’s prison term forced them to leave. Circumstances took them to the sub-zero city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, where there were so many prisons that, it was said, ‘it is better to live opposite a prison than opposite your own home’.
The Suvorovs were first-hand witnesses to the convulsive changes that saw the collapse of the Soviet empire in the late twentieth century, and the more recent rise of Putin’s Russia. Author Conor O’Clery, an acclaimed journalist and the first western correspondent to be based in Moscow during the Gorbachev era, knows this family well: he is married to Zhanna.

Both intimate and sweeping in scale, The Shoemaker and His Daughter is a story of ordinary life in extraordinary times.

The Spinning Heart

by Donal Ryan

Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2013
Shortlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2014
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013
Winner of Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2012

“My father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down. He hasn’t yet missed a day of letting me down.”

In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

The Spinning Heart speaks for contemporary Ireland like no other novel. Wry, vulnerable, all-too human, it captures the language and spirit of rural Ireland and with uncanny perception articulates the words and thoughts of a generation. Technically daring and evocative of Patrick McCabe and J.M. Synge, this novel of small-town life is witty, dark and sweetly poignant.

Donal Ryan’s brilliantly realized debut announces a stunning new voice in literary fiction.