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Life in Ireland

by Conor W O’brien (Merrion Press)

Life in Ireland, or as the sub-head has it, ‘A Short History of a Long Time’, takes us from before the Dawn of the Dinosaurs (the fossils at Bray Head date back more than 500 million years) to the tragedy of the Great Auk (now extinct, which was caught for the last time off the coast of Waterford in 1834) and beyond. It is a history tale, exotic, compelling and cautionary, chronicling the rise and fall of eras and animals, great and small, and what we can do today to rewild Ireland and bring nature back from the brink.

The Garden

by Paul Perry (New Island) Award-winning poet and novelist, Paul Perry, is flying solo (as Karen Perry he co-authored four bestselling crime novels) in this Steinbeckian fable about the ways and wiles of the modern world. It is largely set in The Garden, a once lush orchid farm located in the Florida Everglades that has been devastated by the worst hurricane in the state’s recent history. Then when Romeo, an expert breeder of the rare ghost orchid, lopes in from Honduras, Blanchard, the keeper of the garden and his Irish sidekick, Swallow, believe that their fortunes are about to turn and a rebirth is imminent.

The Killing Kind

by Jane Casey (Harper Collins)

“I think about death a lot, but I was not thinking about it the day it came for me.” Neat opening line in a thriller with a neat premise: after barrister Ingrid Lewis successfully defends John Webster on a charge of stalking, he fixes her in his crosshairs and nearly destroys her life. Now when one of her colleagues is run down on a busy London High Street, Ingrid (those are her opening thoughts) reckons she was the intended victim. Then Webster shows up her door claiming that her life is in danger and that he is her only hope.