Confessions is set across several decades of recent history, in sections split between New York City and rural Donegal, Ireland. It is told from multiple perspectives, of women in different generations of the same family. It opens memorably on September 11, 2001, with Cora Brady wandering the streets of New York following the attacks, in which it rapidly becomes apparent that her father has died. In an absence of any other surviving family members, we learn that she is to move to Donegal to stay with her aunt Róisín. And that’s the last we hear from Cora for a while, as we first jump back and later forward in time to learn about the stories of her mother, aunt, and later her daughter.

Our London Lives is told from the alternating viewpoints of two Irish immigrants who meet in a central London pub in the 1970s. Milly is a bartender at a traditional city pub, catering for a diverse clientele covering locals, city workers, and most importantly, boxers from a neighbouring club. One of those is Pip, who we first encounter as an ex-convict who has just come out of rehab, in 2017 (the novel’s ‘present day’). Pip’s story is told entirely from the vantage point of that present day, with all the retrospective mix of nostalgia and regret that comes with that sort of angle. By contrast, Milly’s narrative unfolds chronologically, in the moment, through the years from the late 1970s through to, eventually, 2017. In her story there are large leaps and gaps that aren’t immediately filled in, but the two perspectives collide in a richly satisfying (though far from conclusive) ending.

Instructions for a Heatwave is set during the UK’s record-breaking 1976 heatwave and drought. It focuses on an Irish family, led by Gretta and Robert Riordan, who moved to London and raised three children, who have all now left home.. Robert goes out one morning for a newspaper and mysteriously disappears, which is the impetus for a re-grouping of the remaining family members, all of whom are dealing with their own issues and harbouring secrets.

The Wren, The Wren is told from the perspective of three members of the same family. We begin from the perspective of Nell, a student and latterly author of clickbait-y online journalism, who is keen to break away from her claustrophobic relationship with her mother. This perspective alternates through most of the book with that of her mother Carmel, who has raised Nell alone after a brief affair. Looming over them both is the long shadow of Carmel’s poet father Phil., a womaniser who channels most of hs useful energy into poetry and otherwise appears as something of a moral and emotional vaccum. His nature-focused poems are dotted through the book, and we also get one chapter from his perspective towards the end.

Ordinary Human Failings is set in London in 1990, as a housing estate community is rocked by the death of a toddler, with suspicion quickly falling on Lucy, the 10-year old daughter of an Irish family, the Greens. A tabloid journalist, Tom, is dispatched to investigate, with a strong focus on digging up dirt on the Green family, whose outsider, reclusive status means they are the inevitable target of attention for the crime. It’s pitched as a thriller, with a mystery to be solved, and Tom is convinced he’s going to be the one to solve it. He moves the family into a small hotel, plies them with drink and looks for the inevitable trauma that has led them here, and a motive for the crime.

Soldier Sailor is a brief but intense novel told by a mother (the titular ‘Soldier’) and addressed to her son (who she calls ‘Sailor’). Its not entirely clear from what remove it’s being written - the narrative jumps around so much that it’s hard to be certain - but it focuses on Sailor’s first two or three years of life, during which the narrator is practically fighting for survival as she struggles with the everyday demands of motherhood. She is left, like so many mothers, bearing virtually all of the work of bringing up her son, while her husband goes to work, watches football, and - most egregiously of all - sleeps. Through a series of traumatic vignettes (none more so than the novel’s opening section - in which she briefly abandons her child, having written a suicide note to him) we learn of Soldier’s despairing sense of alienation from the previous version of herself, who she sees as lost to the all-consuming mother who has replaced her. Throughout, though, there is also a near-unbearable sense of the desperate love of mother for child, culminating in a lyrical, beautiful final section in which Soldier contemplates their inevitable future separation: in spite of all the trauma of the present moment, the real source of fear in her life.

Prophet Song focuses on Eilish, a microbiologist and mother of four (ranging in age from a baby to a seventeen year old) living in Dublin. In the background is the looming threat posed by a new authoritarian government in Ireland. Her husband Larry is an official in the Teachers’ Union, at the start of the novel still absorbed in his work and organising protests against the new government, believing the protections he has been used to in a democratic society still apply. Relatively rapidly, though, we learn that this is a new and significantly darker world, in which protests are violently suppressed and Larry himself is taken in for questioning by the stasi-esque Garda National Services Bureau (GNSB). Within days, he has disappeared, along with many other men in Eilish’s immediate circle.

The Bee Sting is something of an epic at 600+ pages, focusing on a fairly affluent family in small-town Ireland, in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crash. It's a novel of perspectives, with its lengthy first four sections each seen through the eyes of a different family member.

The Glorious Heresies is a darkly humorous yet moving tale set in the criminal underworld of Cork, in post-crash Ireland. It shifts perspective between five central characters, most centrally Ryan Cusack, the eldest of six siblings who has lost his mother and despite high intelligence and a talent for music has fallen into a life of low-level drug dealing, only really gaining satisfaction from his relationship with Karine.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is a stream-of-consciousness novel, told from the perspective of an unnamed Irish girl in highly distinctive, fractured prose.  It’s largely addressed to her brother, also unnamed and referred to as ‘you’ throughout. His life is limited by the impact of brain damage from the removal of a childhood trauma, but the love between the two siblings is evident throughout, in a novel that doesn’t offer much else in the way of solace. 

Small Things Like These is simply a beautiful read. Its slim page-count contains a surprising amount of depth, both in terms of plot and emotional punch. The present-day narrative is set in mid-1980s Ireland, where coal and timber merchant Bill Furlong is preparing for Christmas with his wife and four daughters, as well as going about his work as usual, at a busy time of year. This work takes him to the local nunnery, which is a Magdalene Laundry site. His reaction to what he finds there, coupled with his reflections on his own upbringing as the child of a poor single mother, form the core of the novel and the impetus for its unifying theme.

Milkman is told in the distinctive voice of an unnamed 18-year-old "middle sister" trying to go about her life in an unnamed city in peak-Troubles Northern Ireland. She is stalked and harrassed by a 41-year-old paramilitary officer known only as "Milkman". False rumours spread that she is in a relationship with this character, affecting her relationship with her mother, the wider community, and her "maybe-boyfriend".

The Gathering is told from the perspective of a 39-year-old Irish mother, Veronica Hegarty, who is one of a family of twelve siblings. It focuses on the funeral and wake of her closest brother, Liam, who has recently taken his own life in the sea at Brighton.

The Sea is narrated by Max Morden, a retired art historian reflecting on key moments of love and loss in his life. With little delineation, Max shifts his narration between three timeframes. The oldest covers a period in his childhood, during a summer holiday in a seaside town called Ballyless, where he becomes infatuated with a middle-class family, the Graces. His obsession focuses first on the mother, Connie, and then (in a different way) the daughter Chloe, who is also inextricably linked to her mute twin, Myles. We're also introduced to Carlos, the husband, and Rose, the twins' nursemaid. This part is in many ways the centrepiece and the events within it echo and reverberate across the other sections.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a short novel told entirely in the voice of a 10-year old child in late 1960s Barrytown. Patrick is, to all intents and purposes, an ordinary child, and through his words (all dialogue and stream of consciousness interior monologue) we’re introduced to his friends, teachers, parents and close sibling, Sinbad / Francis. There’s relatively little structure to the novel, instead it’s a series of vignettes - almost short stories in themselves, typically showing a small insight into Patrick’s life as he learns more about himself and the world around him.

It's 1919 and Major Brendan Archer, soon after returning from the Trenches, heads over to Ireland to meet a woman he seems to be engaged to, despite not being entirely sure whether he is or not.