THE holidays are here which means time to rest, relax and possibly indulge in some reading.
If you’re in the market for some new material there are plenty of great Irish books released in 2025 that could be just what you are after.
Here’s our round up of some of the sweetest literary treats of the year gone by…
Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way by Elaine Feeney
Penguin, £9.99
Described as a ‘superb, multi-generational story told in stunning, poetic prose’, by fellow author Sinéad Gleeson, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way is Elaine Feeney’s third novel,
In it, the Galway native introduces readers to protagonist Claire O’Connor – whose life has been on hold since she broke up with Tom Morton and moved from cosmopolitan London back home to the rugged West of Ireland to care for her dying father.
But snatches of her old life are sure to follow her, when Tom unexpectedly moves nearby for work.
As Claire is thrown back into a love she thought she’d left behind, she questions if Tom has come for her or for himself.
Living in her childhood home brings its own challenges.
While Claire tries to maintain a normal life – obsessing over the internet, going to work and minding her own business – Tom’s return stirs up haunting memories trapped within the walls of the old family house.
Publishers Penguin describe Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way as a story of “love and resilience, rich with history and drama, and the legacies of violence and redemption”.
Nesting by Róisín O’Donnell
Simon & Schuster, £9.99
Róisín O’Donnell’s debut novel Nesting won her the Novel of the Year award at last month’s Irish Book Awards
The bestseller, which was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize, centres on a mother who struggles to escape her husband’s abuse and coercive control with her two young children.
It is set in Dublin, where we meet Ciara Fay, who has made a split-second decision that will change everything.
Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away.
Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.
Author Roddy Doyle has described O’Donnell’s work as “brand-new, urgent and hugely satisfying”.
The new release follows the success of Feeney’s second novel How to Build a Boar, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 and shortlisted for the An Post Novel of the Year Award 2023.
Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin
Bonnier Books, £9.45
Edinburgh-based Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin hails from Dublin.
Her first book Ordinary Saints is inspired by her own childhood in a devout Catholic household.
In it we meet Jay, who was only 16 when her beloved brother Ferdia died suddenly while training to be a priest in Rome.
Thirteen years later, she’s living in London, when her father phones to let her know that the Church is considering Ferdia for sainthood.
The priest who is doing the initial investigation arranges to meet Jay for her take on things, but the conversation comes to an end shortly after she indicates her difficulty with the proposition.
From there, she realizes it’s high time she has a chat with her parents about certain aspects of her childhood.
Ní Mhaoileoin drifts back and forth between the present and the past, and we begin to understand why Jay is not so keen on going home.
Her debut asks - who gets to decide how we are remembered - and who we will become?
Venetian Vespers by John Banville
Faber, £12.99
Wexford-born writer John Banville’s latest novel is set in the winter of 1899.
Strange things are afoot as the new century approaches and English hack writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat.
But in the midst of a rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans for a substantial inheritance look to be dashed.
Arriving in Venice for their belated honeymoon at Palazzo Dioscuri - the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo - the couple are met by a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences, which exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves. Is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city, or is he really losing his mind?
Banville, who won the Booker Prize in 2005, for his book The Sea, also writes crime novels under the name Benjamin Black.
In his 30-year writing career he has published more than 30 books.
Our Song by Anna Carey
Hachette, £15.99
Traditionally an author of young adult novels, 2025 saw Anna Carey move into the world of adult fiction.
The writer, who hails from Dublin, published Our Song in June to critical acclaim.
It follows the lives of Tadhg and Laura.
They used to be in a band together; they used to be a lot of things in fact.
Now he's a superstar, touring the world with his songs, making Laura feel like a failure and reminding her of what might have been.
Then she gets an email that could change everything.
Carey describes the book as “a second-chance love story” and explains that it is somewhat inspired by her own life experiences.
“Tadhg and Laura, who were bandmates in college, reunite sixteen years later, when he’s a music superstar and she’s an unemployed copywriter, to finish a song they started writing back in the day,” she says.
“I got together with my husband when we were in a band together in our mid-twenties, so I know all about hooking up with bandmates.”
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
Hodder and Stoughton, £10.99
Short story writer Wendy Erskine’s debut novel was published in June.
In The Benefactors, the Belfast author tells a polyphonic story with three mothers at its core.
The book was named Waterstones Ireland’s Book of the Year 2025, for delivering a “blazingly funny and astute portrait of modern-day Northern Ireland that deftly mines issues of class, money and parenthood”.
Its central characters are Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh - very different women but all mothers to 18-year-old boys.
Glamorous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care.
Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves the celebrity and prestige this brings her.
They do not know each other yet, but when their sons are accused of sexually assaulting Misty Johnston, whose family lacks the wealth and social-standing of their own, they'll leverage all the power of their position to protect their children.
As their stories unfold, Erskine expertly tackles intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means, while adding a wee bit of Belfast wit for good measure.
Thirst Trap by Grainne O’Hare
Pan Macmillan, £9.99
The eye-catching cover of Gráinne O’Hare’s debut novel boasts a cigarette poised in a platform shoe.
This, and the cover’s pink, purple and glitter shades, serve to enhances its appeal.
Inside O’Hare offers up a fresh, fun and feisty story of female friendship and loss. Maggie, Harley and Róise have been lost since the sudden death of their friend and roommate Lydia.
Still living in their crumbling Belfast houseshare, they live for the weekend and their friendship.
Maggie is navigating the twin perils of therapy and a situationship with an unavailable woman.
Harley is careening from club to club, hookup to hookup, in a blurry quest for meaning.
Róise is about to turn thirty and her crush on her boss the only reason she still turns up.
Time is moving on and adulthood beckons, but can the girls manage the transitions their lives need?
And will they ever get over the loss of their friend?
The Language of Remembering by Patrick Holloway
Epoque Press, £10.99
Patrick Holloway published his debut novel The Language of Remembering in March.
An award-winning fiction, poetry and short story writer, Holloway is also an editor of the literary journal, The Four Faced Liar.
His novel is centred on Oisín who is returning from Brazil with his wife and daughter.
He is looking to rebuild a life in Ireland and reconnect with his mother, Brigid, who has early onset Alzheimer’s.
As her condition deteriorates, she starts to speak Irish, the language of her youth, and reflect on her childhood dreams and aspirations.
Mother and son embark on a journey of personal discovery, and as past traumas are exposed, they begin to understand what has shaped them and who they really are.
Fellow author Donal Ryan describes Holloway as a “rare and immense talent” and says the book is “full of the grit and texture and sweetness of life, the sorrow of loss, the wonderful, terrible mystery of our humanity”.
Ghost Wedding by David Park
Simon and Schuster, £9.99
Described by author Roddy Doyle as “one of Ireland’s great novelists” David Park released his latest book Ghost Wedding in May.
In it, the Belfast native tells the tale of two troubled men, separated by nearly a century, but bound by the ghosts of their past.
When George Allenby is put in charge of building a lake in the grounds of an imposing Irish manor house, he intends to do the job as swiftly as possible and return to Belfast. Allenby is still wrestling with his time as an officer during the First World War, burdened by the many things he could have done differently.
Almost a century later, Alex and Ellie are preparing for their wedding, sparing no expense to hire a venue overlooking the very lake Allenby built all those years ago.
Like Allenby before him, Alex is haunted by decisions he made in the past.
Now, with the wedding drawing ever closer, he is at a crossroads. Telling the truth might free him from his guilt; it might also take away everything he cares about, including Ellie.
In what has been described as a “masterful portrait of love and betrayal”, Park reveals the many ways the past seeps into the present: destructive, formidable, but also hopeful, in the moments of fragile beauty that remain.
What the story reinforces is that humans change very little despite the passage of time.
Show Me Where it Hurts by Claire Gleeson
Sceptre £10.99
In her debut novel Show Me Where it Hurts, Claire Gleeson asks how do you survive the unsurvivable?
Her protagonist Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children.
It's the comfortable family life she always thought she'd have.
All of that changes in an instant, however, when Tom runs the family car off the road, seeking to end his own life, and take his wife and children with him.
Rachel is left to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened - and to find a way to go on living afterwards.
What emerges is a snapshot of what it's like to live alongside someone who is suffering, how you keep yourself afloat when the person you love is drowning, and how you survive irreparable loss.
Gleeson won the Newcomer of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards 2025 for her debut.
Great Irish Wives by Nicola Pierce
O’Brien Press, £16.99
In Great Irish Wives Nicola Pierce shines a spotlight on ten women who were instrumental in their famous husbands' success.
They are Matilda Tone, Mary O’Connell, Constance Wilde, Charlotte Shaw, Emily Shackleton, Annette Carson, Sinéad de Valera, Margaret Clarke, George Yeats and Beatrice Behan.
The men in this book are household names, from Wolfe Tone and Daniel O’Connell to Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan, and they all have one thing in common: they married women who enabled them to pursue their dreams, even if that meant courting death or outrage.
Nicola Pierce tells their stories so well that the book won the History Book of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards 2025.
Paper Heart by Cecelia Ahern
HaperCollins, £9.99
Cecilia Ahern has been writing books since her smash hit debut PS I Love You hit the stores in 2004.
This year she returned with her latest novel Paper Heart.
In it we meet Pip, whose world is small but is about to become a whole lot bigger.
For years she’s tucked away her dreams, shrinking herself into the space left behind – like the delicate origami she creates alone in her room.
Then hope comes from an unlikely place: an astronomer from the local observatory.
He teaches her to look up at the stars, and to see a world far bigger and more beautiful than she ever imagined.
And perhaps in that big, beautiful universe there’s someone waiting for her. If she can find the courage to open her heart.
Released in August, Paper Heart won the Ireland AM Popular Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2025.
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