Irish Literary Fiction

In this beautiful, urgent, and ultimately uplifting novel by a rising Irish literary star comes a heart-pounding, life-affirming story about one woman trying to leave her marriage and start over. On a bright spring afternoon, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything...

Every woman wants to be Elizabeth Bennet Darcy–beautiful, gracious, universally admired, strong, daring and outspoken–a thoroughly modern woman in crinolines. And every woman will fall madly in love with Mr. Darcy–tall, dark and handsome, a nobleman and a heartthrob whose virility is...

Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history - these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as The Mabinogion. They tell of Gwydion the shape-shifter, who can create a woman out of flowers; of Math the magician whose feet must lie in the lap of a virgin; of hanging a pregnant mouse and hunting a magical boar.

Relinquishing thoughts of a materially rewarding life, the respectably educated Felix Holt returns to his native village in North Loamshire and becomes an artisan. He is a forceful young man of honor, integrity, and idealism, burning to participate in political life so that he may improve the lot of his fellow artisans.

Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold, first published in Cornhill Magazine 1867-68 and collected as a book in 1869. Arnold's famous piece of writing on culture established his High Victorian cultural agenda which remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until the 1950s. According to his view advanced in the book, ‘Culture [...] is a study of perfection’.

Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D. E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touching tale of love, loss and redemption through friendship.

Most readers have heard of Ulysses. Few have actually read it. This edition is for both. Published in Paris in 1922, Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through a single day in Dublin — June 16, 1904 — and in doing so dismantles every assumption about what a novel can be and do. Stream of consciousness, interior monologue, parody, myth, obscenity, tenderness, comedy: Joyce deploys them all simultaneously, not as technique but as necessity. He was not being difficult. He was being honest about the way a mind actually works. Ulysses — One day. One city. One man buying a kidney for breakfast, ...

Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time. The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar.

'Hilderbrand meets Binchy in this sparkling small-town read.' 'A jewel, brimming with warm, delightfully flawed characters.' (Romantic Times) Escape into another heartwarming novel from the Irish Times #1 bestseller. When a newborn is found on the steps of a small-town cafe, the close-knit community rallies round to help figure out the mystery. Who could have abandoned it and why? Hollywood actress Ruth is hiding out in her hometown following an ill-advised fling with a co-star. But is that all she's hiding? Nina has returned home to live with her estranged dad after a difficult break-up. ...

The Gallagher family has called Deeprath Castle home for 700 years. Nestled in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, the estate is now slated to become a public trust, and book lover and scholar Carragh Ryan is hired to take inventory of its historic library. But after meeting Aidan, the current Viscount Gallagher, and his enigmatic family, Carragh knows that her task will be more challenging than she'd thought.

A New York Times bestseller and a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, The New York Times Book Review, Amazon, The Boston Globe, LitHub, Vulture, Slate, Elle, Vox, and Electric Literature “Tana French’s best and most intricately nuanced novel yet.” —The New York Times An “extraordinary”...

The Man of Property, the first novel in Galsworthy's epic social satire The Forsyte Saga, introduces us to Soames Forsyte, a solicitor and prominent man of his important family. Accustomed to getting whatever he wants, he sets his sights with absolute determination on the beautiful Irene in spite of her pennilessness and her indifference to him.

Jamie O'Neill loves the color red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of certain objects, books with dust jackets, rivers, cats, and Edgar Allan Poe. At age thirteen, there are two things he wants most in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother, Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind, these things are intimately linked, and at his new school, despite the daily barrage of bullies and cathedral bells, he meets two teachers who might be able to help him, though each struggles against inertias of their own.

The riotous, raucous, and deeply resonant debut novel from “one of the best story writers in the English language today” (Financial Times), Wild Houses follows two outsiders caught in the crosshairs of a small-town revenge kidnapping gone awry.

Inspired by one of Ireland’s most haunting ballads… The Fields of Athenry – An Gorta Mór is a sweeping Irish historical novel of love, exile, and survival during the Great Famine. Michael is an ordinary Irish husband and father whose only crime is trying to feed his starving family. For that desperate act, he is arrested and transported across the world to Australia — a land so distant it might as well be the end of the earth. In a single moment, his family is torn apart. Left behind in a country hollowed by hunger, Mary must fight to keep their child alive as Ireland collapses ...

This is the story of Kitty Fane, the adulterous wife of a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. When her husband discovers her deception, he exacts a terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic in China.

He watched the Northmen burn Lindisfarne when he was seven years old. His parents never came back from the fire. Rescued by an Irish monk and carried across the sea, the boy called Miach grows up inside the walls of a monastery in Meath—learning to grind oak-gall ink, copy scripture in the Irish hand, and survive the bruising social world of boys who belong to the land he has only borrowed. When he takes his vows and receives the name Brother Michael, he carries with him a survivor’s understanding of what the Northmen actually are: not demons, not instruments of God’s wrath, but men ...

***SELECTED AS A 2026 BOOK TO WATCH IN THE TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, IRISH TIMES, SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, RTE*** 'An electrifying debut' Economist 'One of the debuts of the year' Irish Times 'A stylish, adroit and gritty debut' Anne Enright 'A book you inhale, devour, grapple with, and reel from more...

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by People, Vogue, Parade, NPR, and Elle “A gem of a book.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo A triumphant New York Times bestseller and Tonight Show Summer Reads Pick about love, forgiveness, and family—perfect for...

“Colm Tóibín’s beautiful, subtle illumination of Henry James’s inner life” (The New York Times) captures the loneliness and hope of a master of psychological subtlety whose forays into intimacy inevitably fail those he tried to love. Beautiful and profoundly moving, The Master tells...