I am delighted to be joining in with the longlist celebrations for The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2024. My focus today will be on Close to Home by Michael Magee, but first here is a quick overview of the Prize and the full list of titles. The Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize is the world’s…
‘Would you know a serial killer if you met one? What if she served you coffee every day?”– The Good Girl [ About The Good Girl ] Grace Murphy doesn’t seem like the type of woman who’d have a man cable-tied to a chair, slowly dying in her house. She keeps to herself and goes…
‘Based on the award-winning play starring Jodie Comer‘– Prima Facie [ About Prima Facie ] This is not life. This is law. Tessa Ensler is a brilliant barrister who’s forged her career in criminal defence through sheer determination. Since her days at Cambridge, she’s carefully disguised her working class roots in a male-dominated world where…
‘The gripping new thriller featuring DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent from the Top Ten Sunday Times bestselling author‘– A Stranger in The Family [ About A Stranger in The Family ] Every mother’s worst nightmare . . . When nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall vanished from her bed one summer night, her disappearance tore her family apart.…
‘Darcy thought about it and understood that each complication in her life had merged into one gargantuan mess. Her flawed judgement of character towered over other ramblings in her mind, but each self-inflicted complication had its own calling bell, ready to summon at will.’– Want [ About Want ] In the heat of a summer…
‘On her first shift at an Edinburgh halfway house for violent offenders, a young woman is taken hostage … and that’s just the beginning…’ – Halfway House [ About Halfway House ] They`re the housemates from Hell… When her disastrous Australian love affair ends, Lou O´Dowd heads to Edinburgh for a fresh start, moving in…
‘SHE WAS THE NEXT BIG THING … UNTIL SHE DISAPPEARED‘ [ About Whatever Happened to Birdy Troy? ] In the early 1980s, The Diamonds – Ireland’s trailblazing all-woman rock band – were on the brink of international success. Their debut single ‘Too Much Not Enough’ was soaring in the British charts. Then, as suddenly as…
‘Mothers are not supposed to go on road trips’– Breakdown [ About Breakdown ] One winter morning on an ordinary day in contemporary Dublin, an ordinary middle-class woman wakes up in her ordinary suburban home. Her husband is next to her in bed, her teenage children sleeping nearby. Without thinking much about it, she walks…
‘When their lives briefly intertwine, something extraordinary happens…’– Last Chance in Paris [ About Last Chance in Paris ] When her husband suggests a romantic break, Claire feels obliged to say yes but immediately regrets it. After all that they’ve been through, how can one weekend in Paris save their marriage? Claire and Ronan aren’t…
Three Little Birds –‘Sam Blake at her masterful best’ – Andrea Mara [ About Three Little Birds ] Two decades of secrets. One shocking discovery… When a skull is found in Lough Coyne, facial reconstruction expert Dr Carla Steele is drawn into a fourteen-year-old case – but not all cases are cold, as Carla discovers…