Trespasses
£8.99
Cushla Lavery lives with her mother in a small town near Belfast. At 24, she splits her time between her day job as a teacher to a class of 7-year-olds, and regular bartending shifts in the pub owned by her family. It’s here, on a day like any other – as the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploding, another man shot, killed, beaten or left for dead – that she meets Michael Agnew, an older (and married) barrister who draws her into his sophisticated group of friends. When the father of a young boy in her class, becomes the victim of a savage attack, Cushla is compelled to help his family. But as her affair with Michael intensifies, political tensions in the town escalate, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.
* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023 ** WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2022 ** SHORTLISTED FOR BRITISH BOOK OF THE YEAR: DEBUT FICTION ** SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2022 ** AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2022 ** A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME *—————————‘Like Sally Rooney mixed with a political thriller’ RUSSELL KANE‘Intense, unflinchingly honest, it broke my heart a million times’ MARIAN KEYES‘Absolutely loved it’ MAX PORTER ‘A beautiful, devastating novel’ NICK HORNBYOne by one, she undid each event, each decision, each choice. If Davy had remembered to put on a coat.If Seamie McGeown had not found himself alone on a dark street.If Michael Agnew had not walked through the door of the pub on a quiet night in February in his white shirt. There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.As people get up each morning and go to work, school, church or the pub, the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploded, another man beaten, killed or left for dead. In the class Cushla teaches, the vocabulary of seven-year-old children now includes phrases like ‘petrol bomb’ and ‘rubber bullets’. And as she is forced to tread lines she never thought she would cross, tensions in the town are escalating, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together.Tender and shocking, Trespasses is an unforgettable debut of people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times.—————————A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * GUARDIAN * TELEGRAPH * NEW STATESMAN * DAILY MAIL * IRISH TIMES * IRISH INDEPENDENT * BELFAST TELEGRAPH
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