Books for 2025: Turn the page after 2024 with the best of Irish fiction and non-fiction

Crime is to the fore in 2025, from the fictional detective Charlie Parker to a real-life familicide and a daughter’s fight for justice, writes Marjorie Brennan

Clockwise from bottom left: Cork author Catherine Ryan Howard’s new crime novel, ‘Burn After Reading’, is about a ghostwriter and a suspected killer; in William Wall’s ‘Writers Anonymous’ an acclaimed author has a secret; solicitor Catherine Kirwan’s ‘The Seventh Body’ is inspired by real events, and John Connolly and Charlie Parker are back on the case in ‘The Children of Eve’. Pictures: Bríd O’Donovan;  Liz Kirwan; Denis Minihane, and Rober Solsona/Europa Press via Getty

Fiction

Cork noir continues to thrive, with this month’s release of The Dark Hours, by Amy Jordan (Harper Collins). A retired detective must return to Cork City for a sinister case from her past. In Burn After Reading (Bantam, March), Cork author Catherine Ryan Howard delivers another deviously plotted thriller, in which a rookie ghostwriter signs up to do the memoirs of a suspected killer.

Solicitor Catherine Kirwan is inspired by real-life events in The Seventh Body (Hachette, March), with Detective Alice McCann on the case as an excavation beneath a former pub in Cork City reveals skeletal remains.

In Some of This is True, by Cork-based author Michelle McDonagh (Hachette, May), a mother investigates her daughter’s death at Blarney Castle.

Detective Lottie Parker returns to investigate the death of a teenage girl at a party in The Guilty Girl, by Patricia Gibney (Sphere, January). 

In The Stolen Child, by Carmel Harrington (Hachette, February), a psychotherapist delves in to the truth about her missing brother.

Jane Casey continues to dial up the sexual tension as DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent return in The Secret Room (Hemlock Press, April), investigating a mysterious death in a luxury hotel.

The consistently brilliant John Connolly is back with The Children of Eve (Hachette, May), in which Charlie Parker investigates the disappearance of an ex-soldier and the abduction of children in Mexico.

Cathy Kelly's 'Sisterhood' celebrates family and friendship as two sisters set out on a life-changing journey. File picture: Moya Nolan

Rom-com fans will love Róisín Meaney’s Moving On (Hachette, February), billed as One Day meets The Flatshare. Sisterhood, by Cathy Kelly (Harper Collins, February), celebrates family and friendship as two sisters set out on a life-changing journey. 

In Before Dorothy (Harper Collins, June), Hazel Gaynor gives readers the fascinating back story of Aunt Em from The Wizard of Oz.

Confessions (Viking, January), by Catherine Airey, is an epic debut following three generations of Irish women between Donegal and New York. It was written by the author while staying in West Cork. 

One of the most intriguing and interesting Irish writers at work today, Adrian Duncan, returns with The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth (Tuskar Rock, January), described as a masterful excavation of human desires.

The Ghosts of Rome (Harvill Secker, January), by Joseph O’Connor, is the second novel in the ‘Escape Line’ trilogy, inspired by the true story of Kerryman Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who saved the lives of thousands of soldiers and refugees during the Second World War.

In The City Changes Its Face (Faber & Faber, February), Eimear McBride captures an intense conversation between two lovers.

Fíona Scarlett follows up her acclaimed debut Boys Don’t Cry with May All Your Skies Be Blue (Faber & Faber, February), a story of love and friendship that unfolds over three decades. 

Colum McCann's 'Twist' is a timely exploration of connection and disconnection and follows a journalist writing about the vast unseen network of underwater cables. File picture: Moya Nolan

In The Language of Remembering, by Patrick Holloway (Epoque Press, February), a mother and son embark on a journey of discovery and reconnection in the Cork seaside village of Crosshaven.

Paraic O’Donnell gives us another slice of gothic Victorian detective fiction in The Naming of the Birds, featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Henry Cutter and Sergeant Gideon Bliss (Hachette, February).

Twist, by Colum McCann (Penguin, March), is a timely exploration of connection and disconnection and follows a journalist writing about the vast unseen network of underwater cables. Writers Anonymous, by Cork author William Wall (New Island, April), follows an acclaimed writer who must face up to a story he has kept secret his whole life.

Poet Seán Hewitt makes his fiction debut with Open, Heaven (Penguin, April), the story of a life-changing first love. Another debut and coming-of-age tale is Fun and Games, from John Patrick McHugh (Fourth Estate, April), whose previous short story collection, Pure Gold, made a big impression. 

The Best of Everything (Headline, April), by Kit De Waal, is another heart-warming story, from the author of the acclaimed My Name is Leon, about what it means to care for others.

In Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way (Harvill Secker, May) by Elaine Feeney, a woman must reckon with her past when she returns home to care for her dying father.

Belfast author David Park is arguably one of the finest, and most under-the-radar, writers on this island. His latest novel, Ghost Wedding (Oneworld, May), follows two troubled men, separated by nearly a century, but bound by the ghosts that haunt an imposing Irish manor. 

Known for her masterful and commanding short stories, Wendy Erskine’s eagerly awaited debut novel, The Benefactors (Sceptre, June), is about three mothers who will go to any lengths to protect their teenage sons when they are accused of sexual assault.

Non-fiction and memoir

A Time for Truth (Hachette, February), by Sarah Corbett Lynch, is a powerful and affecting account of the long and gruelling fight for justice following the killing of her father, Jason, and how Sarah has navigated her own journey of grief and recovery from trauma.

In The Age of Diagnosis (Hodder, March), Wellcome Prize-winning Irish neurologist Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan examines how the growing obsession with medical labels is making us sicker and sometimes a diagnosis can do more harm than good.

Former journalist and Kilkenny native Tim MacGabhann made a splash with his debut novel Call Him Mine, inspired by his investigations of Mexican drug cartels. In The Black Pool: A Memoir of Forgetting (Hodder and Stoughton, May), he tells the equally gripping and personal story of his own addiction and recovery.

We can guess what he’s been doing with his time since he left office, as former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gives us a glimpse behind the personal and political curtain in his memoir (Sandycove, September).

It was the hashtag that went viral around the world — WTF Happened: #WakingTheFeminists and the Movement that Changed Irish Theatre (UCD Press, May), edited by Sarah Durcan and Lian Bell, tells the story of the movement that emanated from the Abbey Theatre’s failure to celebrate women’s contribution to Irish theatre in the 1916 centenary celebrations.

Jacqueline Connolly is the sister of Clodagh, who was murdered by husband Alan Hawe, along with her sons Liam, Niall, and Ryan. In her book, Deadly Silence (Hachette, May), she recounts the family’s search for truth and justice, uncovering a shocking story of secrecy, coercive control, and premeditation.

The Episode: A True Story of Loss, Madness and Healing, by Mary Ann Kenny (Sandycove, May), is a compelling memoir in which the author details her terrifying descent into psychosis after the sudden death of her husband, and how she found her way back to happiness.

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