I’m a bright bubbly person with a dark, sinister imagination. As an Irish journalist turned fiction writer, the thrillers I write reflect some of the challenging crime scenes I’ve reported from. While the whodunnit element in crime-writing is extremely important, equally, I prefer to have my readers fascinated with the whydoneit. I love writing about dark pasts, buried secrets, simmering resentments, and how they shape my characters in such a way that creates delicious unease and urgency. I like to use settings like tiny Irish villages to enhance the often insular nature of locals protecting their own. The picturesque settings in my books create mood and tension and which include the landscape as character.
It’s a terrifying concept – a wedding on a remote island off the Irish coast where the electricity goes out.
A spine-tingling scream kicks the book of this propulsive thriller off like a starter gun and the pace continues throughout.
As the lights come back on, a body turns up. But could this be murder? In The Guest List, Foley weaves some classic Agatha Christie magic, but with a refreshing twist. I loved that the book is set in the wilds of the west coast of Ireland where the sea and landscape adds to the sense of foreboding.
The locked room craze is intriguing for a reason – that similar isolation is expertly played upon by Foley who has cut guests off from the mainland as the secrets unravel one by one.
A layered, nuanced read where the reader doesn’t even know who-croaked-it let alone who-done-it until the very satisfying end.
*The brand new thriller from Lucy Foley - THE PARIS APARTMENT - is available to pre-order now*
The No.1 Sunday Times bestseller
*Over 1 million copies sold worldwide*
*One of The Times and Sunday Times Crime Books of the Year*
*Goodreads Choice Awards winner for Crime & Mystery 2020*
A gripping, twisty murder mystery thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of The Hunting Party.
'Lucy Foley is really very clever' Anthony Horowitz 'Thrilling' The Times 'A classic whodunnit' Kate Mosse 'Sharp and atmospheric and addictive' Louise Candlish 'A furiously twisty thriller' Clare Mackintosh
It’s a crisp spring morning when Cass drops her husband, a respected lecturer, to the beach for his medically prescribed swim. While waiting for him, something catches her eye. A young woman runs towards her husband and embraces him – until he holds his hand over her face and she falls down on the stones, dead.
Kelly has created a stunning premise for her debut novel. Set on Dublin’s rocky Killiney beach, the book is about Cass’s solitary quest to unravel what has taken place.
The atmospheric setting of the waves lapping, the shingly stones crunching, and the moody sky continues through this edge-of-your-seat read about obsession and dark secrets coming to light.
'Opens with a terrific hook' IRISH TIMES 'Absolutely absorbing' SAM BLAKE 'A chilling, magical read' PATRICIA GIBNEY 'Breathtakingly paced' S. A. DUNPHY 'Truly gripping' SINEAD CROWLEY
THE DEAD WON'T STAY SILENT FOREVER...
It's a crisp spring morning when Cass drops her husband, a respected lecturer, to the beach for his medically prescribed swim. While waiting for him, something catches her eye. A young woman runs towards her husband and embraces him - until he holds his hand over her face and she falls down on the stones, dead.
In the backseat of the car, their seven-year-old son sits quietly. When…
Ideas of neglect and abandonment as well as isolation run throughout Where I End, a tense shocking literary debut from the Irish writer and journalist. This story is about an incapacitated mother being cared for by her teenage daughter.
I loved the desolation White created on the remote island inspired by Inis Meáin. With cliffs on one end, a sandy beach on the other, White describes how she was walking one day with her husband when she felt an explicable sense of dread.
“It wasn’t just wild and windswept and any of those clichés, it was actually more the stillness and the strangeness of it. And I noticed it was really getting to my husband as well, this kind of dread seeping up into us from the rocks and the sky and the ocean.”
This feeling is translated directly into the centre of the book, where the borders between landscape and storyline blur.
Although more of a horror story about the girl’s efforts to find motherly love, the environment plays a huge part in creating mood and suspense. A warning thought, you’ll need a strong stomach for the harrowing ending.
'My mother. At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her ...' Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is the survivor of a private disaster no one will speak about. Aoileann desperately wants a family, and when artist Rachel and her baby move to the island, Aoileann finds a focus for her relentless love.
Towering headlands, windswept beaches, derelict houses. Ruined churches. Author Andrea Carter admits that her entire Innisowen mystery series is inspired by place – landscape and buildings which gives her novels atmosphere and depth.
Her latest offering is Death Writes, set in the stunning Northern Irish location of Glendara.
In Glendara, preparations are underway for Glenfest, Glendara's literary festival. Phyllis Kettle, the local bookshop owner, is especially pleased to have persuaded Gavin Featherstone, the local best-selling recluse writer, to take part.
The festival begins, and an eager crowd awaits Featherstone's appearance on stage. He is unexpectedly engaging, but when he stands to read from his new book, he stumbles and keels over on the platform.
Solicitor and local woman Benedicta O Keefe discovers that she holds Featherstone's will at the office, drafted by her predecessor. Soon, she's drawn into a complicated legal wrangle over the man's estate involving his family and the assistant who lived with him.
The descriptions of wild Irish scenery and small-town sleuths will keep you hooked.
Stranded on a dark road in the middle of the night, a young woman accepts a lift from a passing stranger.
It’s the nightmare scenario that every girl is warned about, and she knows the dangers all too well – but what other choice does she have? As they drive, she alternates between fear and relief – one moment thinking he is just a good man doing a good thing, the next convinced he’s a monster.
But a monster is exactly what she's looking for. When the driver drops her safely home Lucy’s heart sinks. She will have to try again tomorrow night. She’s made herself the bait, in her bid to find the man who took her sister.
Set in and around Dublin and the Dublin mountains, this gripping read from the author of The Nothing Man and 56 Days will keep you guessing until the very end. But it’s the eerie descriptions of the lonely country roads, the misty fog and the vast isolation of the Dublin Mountains (where in real life Irish women have gone missing) that adds to the tension.
Stranded on a dark road in the middle of the night, a young woman accepts a lift from a passing stranger. It's the nightmare scenario that every girl is warned about, and she knows the dangers all too well - but what other choice does she have?
As they drive, she alternates between fear and relief - one moment thinking he is just a good man doing a good thing, the next convinced he's a monster. But when he delivers her safely to her destination, she realizes her fears were unfounded.
Nancy Wills refuses to believe her son died in the Currolough blaze six years ago. She was the one who ran back inside to get him, but claims his cot was empty. Then she tells officers she’s spotted him at a playground, alive and well.
Heavily pregnant Detective Ally Fields returns to the town where she grew up to investigate a fire at a local apartment block. But there are too many concerning connections leading her straight back to a cold case fire from six years ago in which Nancy Wills’ child died. This isn’t the first time the town of Currolough has seen tragedy As Ally tries to piece together the truth behind the little boy’s identity, she battles to come to terms with her own childhood memories.
I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.
Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific expeditions, and Indigenous peoples–all of whom shape their lives in significant ways.
This is a story of friendship that casts a different look on a time period which often focuses only on wagon trains or gunslingers.
After four years of adventure in the frontier, Win Avery returns to his hometown on the edge of the prairie and tracks down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson. Jeb has just lost his parents, and, in his efforts to console him, Win convinces his friend to travel west with him―to see the frontier before it is settled, while it is still unspoiled wilderness.
They embark on a free-spirited adventure, but their journey sidetracks when they befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska prairie. Traveling together through the Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into Gray Wolf, an Arapaho…
