Martina Devlin Books

Leaders. Rebels. Pioneers. Short stories about some of Ireland's trailblazing women by award-winning writer Martina Devlin. In this collection we encounter Countess Markievicz back from the dead to cast a disapproving eye over modern Ireland, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington on hunger strike in prison, and Somerville and Ross discussing book business with their London agent Mr Pinker. Others we meet include a range of activists Anna Parnell in a pawnshop, Belfast's Mary Ann McCracken walking her brother to the scaffold, and Dr Kathleen Lynn locking horns with an archbishop. Authentic and poignant, witty and revealing, Truth & Dare draws on true events to breathe life into an extraordinary cast of women. Their times were out of step with them now their time has come

Martina Devlin, an award-winning columnist for the Irish Independent and podcaster for Dublin City of Literature #CityofBooks, has delivered a new novel based on the life of Edith Somerville of 'Somerville and Ross' fame - authors of The Irish R.M.

Devlin describes the physical and emotional demands of going through fertility treatment and the shattering fall-out when it failed. She also explains how her despair eventually faded, and how she learned to take pleasure in her extended family of nephews and nieces and to count her blessings.

This novel was inspired by the turn of events following one of the world's most horrific tragedies, the sinking of the Titanic. A small group of suvivors meet on one of the Titanic's lifeboats, saved from death by random chance.

Welcome to Sisterland, a world ruled by women, a world designed to be perfect. Here, women and men are kept separate. Women lead highly controlled and suffocating lives, while men are subordinate -? used for labour and breeding. Sisterland's leaders have been watching Constance and recognise that she's special. Selected to reproduce, she finds herself alone with a man for the first time. But the mate chosen for her isn?t what she expected -? and she begins to see a darker side to Sisterland. Constance?s misgivings about the regime mount. Is she the only one who questions this unequal society, or are there other doubters? Set in the near future, About Sisterland is a searing, original novel which explores the devastating effects of extremism.

“There is no shame in being adopted. It means you were wanted. And chosen.”Venus Macken is back in Ireland after more than a decade in London, but she has mixed feelings about the move. Except … her return to the wilds of Roancarrick to care for her elderly father offers the chance to find answers. Answers to a question that has haunted Venus all her life.Venus is tired of feeling like an outsider. Who was her birth mother? Why was she abandoned? Surely the people who love her and reared her can help unlock the riddle of who she is.Meanwhile there are distractions, among them arrogant artist Conor Landers, who helps rekindle Venus’s love for her childhood home.As the sketchy details of what happened on a stormy night 32 years ago are drawn out, Venus begins to realise that knowing who she is matters less than understanding who she wants to be.“Martina Devlin has pulled off a feat unusual in popular fiction, a page-turner which also has the ring of psychological truth” – Irish Times

It is 1711, and the Ulster-Scots community in a remote corner of Ireland is in turmoil. A pretty young newcomer is accusing one woman after another of witchcraft. But Ellen, the serving girl in the house where the visitor is staying, is loyal to the family - and over-fond of her master. Yet she knows that Knowehead is a house like no other.

A warm, witty and wise novel about love, friendship and being in your thirties. Gloria, Eimear and Kate have been friends since they were a trio of six-year-olds cast as the Three Wise Men in the nativity play. Twenty-five years on, they've left Omagh for Dublin and grown up to be Three Unwise Women, all too prone to misuse the gifts they've been given. Eimear's beauty captivates men but robs her of independence. Kate's dazzling wit blinds her to the consequences of betraying a friend. And Gloria's urge to nurture, thwarted by infertility, threatens to destroy everything she holds dear. Aided and abetted in their misdeeds by the irresistible Jack, philandering poet and seducer extraordinaire, the troika find themselves putting their friendship to a test from which it may never recover. To this black comedy Martina Devlin brings a delightful lightness of touch, a turn of phrase to treasure, and three characters to take to your heart.