Billy O. Callaghan Books

*THE #3 IRISH BESTSELLER* *A SINÉAD & RICK 'MUST READS' PICK* An unforgettable tale of love, abandonment, hunger and redemption, from a rising star of Irish fiction 'O'Callaghan is one of our finest writers . . . and this is his best work yet' JOHN BANVILLE ***** At just sixteen, Nancy leaves the small island of Cape Clear for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the effects of the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she is irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair and a devastating chain of events that continues to unfold over three generations. Spanning more than a century, Life Sentences is the unforgettable journey of a family hungry for redemption, and determined against all odds to be free. This sweeping story of one family's fight for survival goes on making the heart lurch long after the final page, and confirms Billy O'Callaghan as one of the finest living Irish writers. ***** 'A lovely, piercing book' SEBASTIAN BARRY 'Stops you in your tracks so you can savour its utter beauty' ANNE GRIFFIN 'Momentous and epic storytelling' BERNARD MACLAVERTY 'So good and true it feels almost magical' SADIE JONES 'Eminently readable . . . My book of the year so far' RYAN TUBRIDY

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE AWARD 2020* On a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon, Michael and Caitlin escape their unhappy marriages to keep an illicit rendez-vous. Once a month, for the past quarter of a century, Coney Island has been their haven. These precious, hidden hours are their only nourishment. But now, amid the howling of an angry snowstorm, the shut-down, out-of-season resort feels like the edge of the world. And their lives, suddenly, are on the brink – with news of serious illness on one side, and a move to the Midwest on the other. And so, after half a lifetime spent in secret, certain long-avoided facts need to be faced, consequences examined, decisions made, and – perhaps – chances finally taken. A quiet, intense drama of late-flowering intimacy, My Coney Island Baby condenses, within the course of a single day, the histories, landscapes, tragedies and moments of wonder that constitute the lives of two people who, although born worlds apart, have been drawn together. O’Callaghan, a masterful prose stylist, has created a devastatingly powerful novel about two unforgettable characters and the choices they have made. This is a book full of sorrow, but also radiant with beauty, longing and breathless desire.