Author Elaine Garvey: When I was a teenager, you couldn’t be ‘easy’ but you couldn’t be ‘frigid’ either. Whatever you did was wrong
The debut novelist on her hotly tipped book, The Wardrobe Department and how she doesn’t know what she thinks about something until she starts writing about it
May All Your Skies Be Blue by Fíona Scarlett: Hopeless dreams in working-class Dublin
Protagonist Shauna is a middle-aged woman faced with the brutal weight of familial duty, lack of opportunity and lack of support
Tenterhooks by Claire-Lise Kieffer: A strikingly original debut story collection
The stories are humorous but never cheerful, the characters often repellently fascinating
‘A lot of things boys seem to instinctually love, we tend to be more dismissive of or even concerned about’
The author’s debut novel for adults, The Boy from the Sea, beautifully evokes the life of a fisherman in a small town and explores profound emotional truths
Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan: Insight, laughs and a heavy understanding of how difficult life is for young millennials and Gen Zs
Dinan is also excellent on the often anti-erotic experience of modern dating
The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick: A love letter to New York and the solo life
Now released in the UK and Ireland, Gornick’s memoir of city life, friendship and gender inequality explores the joy and challenges of living alone
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult: A sumptuous novel by an undeniably brilliant storyteller
A clever, enjoyable and sweeping dual-timeline love story featuring much ado about the possible real author of Shakespeare’s plays
Christine Dwyer Hickey: ‘I’m always going to be fragile about my relationship with my mother ... I just try to make it up with my own kids’
The author discusses her new novel, Our London Lives, and explains how having children can help you write and why she is more celebrated in Germany and Italy than in Irelan
Welcome to Glorious Tuga: A heart-warming novel of travel, identity and belonging
Francesca Segal explores how the bonds of community and friendship can be as strong as those of family
Benjamin Myers: ‘Like most writers I live in fear of having to get a real job’
‘Growing up is really overrated. People do lose that zest or zeal. That’s part of Rare Singles’
Birding by Rose Ruane: Friendship, friction and moments of reckoning
Author’s playful sense of humour adds levity to this moving and uplifting book
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner: Following up Fleishman Is in Trouble was never going to be easy
This is an enjoyable read in the same vein as the author’s best-selling debut, but there is a lingering sense that she is playing it safe
Chris Whitaker: ‘I sometimes wonder if the road I went down was linked to this violent act that happened when I was a kid’
A chance discovery in a library helped Whitaker overcome the trauma of a brutal stabbing and set him on the path to becoming a writer
All Fours by Miranda July: One woman’s quest for life after midlife
Novel challenges assumptions about ageing and desire with humour and honesty
Orla Mackey: ‘Irish people are great storytellers. Take a look around any Irish pub and you’ll see people in deep chat’
Author of Mouthing and 2022 Irish Novel Fair winner gives the impression of an accidental writer: ‘A teacher who writes a bit in between watching Real Housewives’