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As You Were

As You Were

Summary

Discover this unforgettable, darkly funny novel about the power of friendship and the heartbreak of family life - shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021.

'AMAZING' Marian Keyes
'BEAUTIFUL' Douglas Stuart
'FABULOUS' Kevin Barry
'THRILLING' Nicole Flattery

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Sinéad Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.

No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.

But she can't go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Somehow, Sinéad needs to seize the moment, and maybe then she can learn to be free...
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An Evening Standard, Observer and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
An Observer Best Debut 2020

Winner of the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer Award
Winner of the McKitterick Prize 2020
Winner of the Kate O'Brien Award 2021
Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2020


'Extraordinary... This is writing that often reaches into your heart' Evening Standard

'Exhilarating...gloriously full of life' Irish Independent

'Feeney's voice is at once fresh and sharp, with an eye for comedy' Observer

Reviews

  • Comic, heartfelt and full of characters who walk off the page, it feels like Irish writing has been waiting a long time for a voice as unique and insistent as Elaine Feeney. A superb, unforgettable debut.
    Sinéad Gleeson

About the author

Elaine Feeney

Elaine Feeney is an acclaimed novelist and poet from the west of Ireland. Her debut novel, As You Were, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award, and won the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award. How to Build a Boat was also shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. Feeney has published the poetry collections Where’s Katie?, The Radio Was Gospel, Rise and All the Good Things You Deserve, and lectures at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
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