Spring Reads

With the Easter break around the corner, whether you’re travelling or enjoying some quiet time off at home, we hope you’ll find extra time for curling up with a good book. Today’s post is shining a spotlight on just some of the great new books to fill that reading time over the coming weeks, along with a few that you’ll be able to line up and get your hands on very soon.

The Island Retreat by Cathy Kelly

The latest from one of Ireland’s best-loved contemporary women’s fiction writers is an atmospheric and character-driven read about six guests gathered in the most beautiful of locations. Five years after her career as a therapist ended in one catastrophic instant, Rose Talisman is holding a retreat in Corfu, at a villa surrounded by wild pines and sea views. Everyone who has come here is somehow in need of a fresh start. But, for Rose, everything hinges on how this retreat goes, and people’s deepest secrets often have a way of revealing themselves in the least expected of ways. A page-turning, transportive read, perfect to curl up with over the holidays.

Published by HarperCollins (February)

The Lock-Keeper’s Wife by John MacKenna

This moving and deeply evocative novel is a powerful meditation on sorrow, isolation, and the surprising ways joy can return to even the most broken heart. Following the devastating loss of her young children, Julie McDermot was committed to a psychiatric institution by her husband. On her release, Julie is haunted by grief and absence but, as she struggles to piece herself back together, an unexpected encounter with a stranger offers a glimmer of connection and the fragile possibility of hope. A stunning portrait of one woman’s life, exploring both Ireland’s dark history of institutional incarceration and the healing power of hope.

Published by the Lilliput Press (February)

Mr Hoo and Other Stories by John O’Donnell

This latest short-story collection from the award-winning writer explores themes including loneliness, vengeance, sorrow, and desire, through compelling stories filled with schemers and survivors, almost-winners and not-quite losers. Here we find a gullible bird-lover, a woman seeking revenge against an author, a brooding survivor of the Titanic, a young murderer trying to cheat the gallows, a grieving father and a desperate mother, an unhappy judge, and a troubled client. Love and loss, redemption and remorse, yearning and heartbreak; in clear, incisive language these exhilarating stories movingly examine the human condition.

Published by Doire Press (March)

Contentious Spaces by Rosaleen McDonagh

This debut novel, from the acclaimed Irish writer, playwright and performer, is an unflinching and haunting story about identity and loyalty, shame and resilience, grief and love, and the defiant power of voices that refuse to be silenced. In just a week, the Traveller families living in Saint Rita’s will be evicted by the local council, threatening not only their homes but also their history and the stories that have shaped them. Charlene, a proud young beoir suffers a humiliating betrayal. Her mother, Kate, is left to navigate unbearable loss while holding the family together. Her cousin, Sheena, strives to find her place in a new environment that is quick to dismiss her. Her uncle Tommy fights despair as his teenage son spirals out of control. As eviction day draws closer, the families struggle to preserve their dignity, finding strength in one another as they navigate an unknown future.

Published by Skein Press (March)

The Truth About Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent

The award-winning crime writer is back with another dark and gripping page-turner. Ruby Cooper and her sister Erin had an idyllic childhood in a close-knit Boston church community until a shocking incident when Ruby was sixteen turned their worlds upside down. Years later, with Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston, the fallout has left a wake of destruction and now the buried past is hard on their heels, looking to break the surface. Another haunting and compulsive psychological thriller to add to the catalogue.

Published by Sandycove (March)

All the Old Clocks by R.P. O’Donnell

This debut novel is a gripping Irish village mystery where time, memory and family secrets collide. It’s 1988 and Storm Cordelia rages through the village of Kilcraven. Following a devastating love affair and the collapse of her career as a Garda, Emma Daly has moved back home with her dad and taken a job as a librarian in the small West Cork village she thought she left behind. But when she witnesses a murder and the local police arrest the wrong man for the crime, she’s forced to act. Proving this man’s innocence requires unearthing the village’s past and secrets before either the police or the murderer can stop her. With a colourful cast of characters, including a stubborn widow, an elderly hypochondriac and a charming ex-boyfriend, lose yourself in this compulsive mystery that threatens to tear the whole village apart.

Published by New Island (April)

The Steps by Juliano Zaffino

Blending psychological suspense with intimate family drama, this debut novel is both deeply moving and eerily unsettling, a meditation on trauma, family bonds, and the thin line between tenderness and violence. When Derek’s childhood sweetheart Sophie and her children move from Canada to his home in England following a tragedy, they attempt to forge a life together – but their new family is shadowed by grief, myth, and a lingering sense of the uncanny. Told through shifting perspectives, from Jules, the delicate middle child, to fierce Ema, this is an unforgettable portrait of love, loyalty, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

Published by Tramp Press (April)

Mithim by Carina McNally

This haunting historical novel set in 17th-century Ireland centres around healer Mithim, daughter of a Gaelic lord and last keeper of her family’s secrets, who is forced to flee when Cromwellian forces destroy her home. Escaping into Wexford forest, she survives through ancient herbal wisdom. Guided by the goddess An Cailleach, she searches for her brother Eoin—but in a world where empires burn everything visible, only sacred knowledge endures. Perfect for lovers of Irish mythology, historical fiction, and strong female protagonists who forge their own path against the odds.

Published by Mercier Press (May)

And these are just some of the great new books out there to fill the coming weeks. We hope you’ve found some inspiration… and happy reading!