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Heart, Be at Peace

Heart, Be at Peace

Summary

WINNER OF THE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2024

'Donal Ryan’s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society.'
Maria Dickenson, Chair of the IBA judges

'Beautiful...a book full of love and hope, more needed in these days than ever' Kit de Waal

'I am blown away by the ambition and scope of this exquisite piece of writing...sublime in both its sentiment and beauty' Rachel Joyce

Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two...

In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.

But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…

Told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace is a heartfelt, lyrical novel that can be read independently, or as a companion to Donal Ryan’s multi-award-winning novel, The Spinning Heart, voted ‘The Irish Book of the Decade’.

*****

PRAISE FOR DONAL RYAN:

'One of the finest novelists writing today.' RACHEL JOYCE

'His paragraphs are unnoticeably beautiful, his heart always on show' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Endlessly surprising and incredibly moving' DAVID NICHOLLS

'A life-enhancing talent' SEBASTIAN BARRY

'I would struggle to think of any other Irish author working today who writes with as much compassion as Donal Ryan' LOUISE O'NEILL

'Beautiful, compassionate...Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

'Beautifully poised, sad, poetic and human....I loved every single line.' IAN RANKIN

'The prose drips like honey off a spoon' SUNDAY TIMES


Nero Book Awards Shortlisted, 2024
Irish Times bestseller, August 2024

Reviews

  • An astute mosaic. Add to that Ryan’s gift for capturing the foolishness and fakery of human nature and the lyrical power of Irish small-town gossip . . . and you have a portrait of modern Ireland through a series of hard minds and sometimes kind hearts
    Independent

About the author

Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted 'Irish Book of the Decade'. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.
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