97 books like Sunsets Never Wait

By Jonathan Cullen,

Here are 97 books that Sunsets Never Wait fans have personally recommended if you like Sunsets Never Wait. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

Christina McKenna Author Of The Misremembered Man

From my list on overcoming fear and embracing change.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland. Ulster was always an inspiration, for both my painting and my writing. My first novel, The Misremembered Man, became a bestseller worldwide, and I followed it with several more works of fiction. I attribute their success to the magic of rural Ireland, and the wonderful characters who peopled my childhood. My formative years, unhappy and fearful though they were, serve as a repository of emotion and stimulation, which I draw upon frequently in my writing. Having the courage to change and grow in difficult circumstances is a common theme. Since all my novels are character-driven, my book choices broadly reflect this strength in the authors I have chosen.

Christina's book list on overcoming fear and embracing change

Christina McKenna Why did Christina love this book?

Elizabeth Taylor—not to be confused with the actress of the same name—has been called ‘the unsung heroine of British twentieth-century fiction.’ I wholeheartedly agree, and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is Taylor at her sublime best. It’s the tale of an elderly woman, wealthy but recently widowed, who’s faced with a choice: "Do I spend my last days in a care home—or check into a grand hotel?" She opts for the latter and finds herself among a group of fascinating characters, each as eccentric as she herself. 

Insightful about the sadness and loneliness of ageing, this book did not make me feel despondent about growing older. On the contrary, it showed me that love, happiness, and a sense of adventure can be ours at any age, if we’re willing to take chances and open our hearts to others.

By Elizabeth Taylor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is, for me, her masterpiece' - Robert McCrum, Guardian, 'The Best 100 Novels'
'An author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth' - SARAH WATERS
'Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabath Bowen - soul-sisters all' ANNE TYLER

On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper.

Then one…


Book cover of Hotel Du Lac

Christina McKenna Author Of The Misremembered Man

From my list on overcoming fear and embracing change.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland. Ulster was always an inspiration, for both my painting and my writing. My first novel, The Misremembered Man, became a bestseller worldwide, and I followed it with several more works of fiction. I attribute their success to the magic of rural Ireland, and the wonderful characters who peopled my childhood. My formative years, unhappy and fearful though they were, serve as a repository of emotion and stimulation, which I draw upon frequently in my writing. Having the courage to change and grow in difficult circumstances is a common theme. Since all my novels are character-driven, my book choices broadly reflect this strength in the authors I have chosen.

Christina's book list on overcoming fear and embracing change

Christina McKenna Why did Christina love this book?

Yes, another novel set largely in a hotel. This time it’s in Switzerland and overlooks Lake Geneva, spreading, in the wonderful words of Anita Brookner, "like an anaesthetic towards the invisible further shore." Edith Hope is a writer of romantic fiction. She arrives at the "stolid and dignified" Hotel du Lac in late autumn. This is not a holiday for Edith. Her friends and family have insisted she go away for a few weeks to ponder a ‘social indiscretion’. She was due to marry Geoffrey, a boring man she didn’t love, and deserted him on the day of the wedding. Her heart had gone out to David, a married man.

Brookner had an enviable gift for describing people and their peculiarities. Those whom Edith Hope meets at the hotel are largely from the aristocracy, and each and every one is eccentric in the extreme. Edith describes her fellow guests to…

By Anita Brookner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hotel Du Lac as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • When romance writer Edith Hope’s life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, she flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to restore her to her senses.

But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.

In the novel that won…


Book cover of The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

James Lawless Author Of Letters to Jude

From my list on understanding experimental and literary fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a novelist, poet, and short story writer born in Dublin, Ireland. I have always been interested in literature particularly books which I deem as works of art and which throw light on the human condition, something which I try to do in my own work. I have broadcast my poetry and prose on radio and write book reviews for national newspapers. I divide my time now between Kildare and my little mountain abode in West Cork. 

James' book list on understanding experimental and literary fiction

James Lawless Why did James love this book?

I was so moved when I read The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne that it inspired me to write my novel with my protagonist Laurence J Benbo as a male equivalent of Judith Hearne, an innocent exploited by an uncaring world. The quotidian details of Judith’s life are delineated brilliantly by Moore in all her wretchedness reminiscent of some of the characters in Joyce’s Dubliners which Moore would have read and which possibly influenced him. The dark surroundings of Judith’s life lead her into a fantasy world aided by her one necessary weakness—alcohol. But, as Moore points out, it doesn’t have to end tragically. There is a glimmer of hope with life going on, but nothing as before.

By Brian Moore,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of The Guardian’s “1,000 Books to Read Before You Die”

This underrated classic of contemporary Irish literature tells the “utterly transfixing” story of a lonely, poverty-stricken spinster in 1950s Belfast (The Boston Globe)

Judith Hearne is an unmarried woman of a certain age who has come down in society. She has few skills and is full of the prejudices and pieties of her genteel Belfast upbringing. But Judith has a secret life. And she is just one heartbreak away from revealing it to the world.

Hailed by Graham Greene, Thomas Flanagan, and Harper Lee alike, The Lonely Passion of…


Book cover of The Shipping News

Timothy P. Munkeby Author Of The Advocate

From my list on transporting you to a new place in your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent most of my youth playing sports, and so was forced into being a closet reader, only sissies read books. I never watched TV as a kid. I was always buried in a book that transported me somewhere. These were the days when I had to read with a flashlight under the covers until I was caught and told to shut my darn book and go to sleep. This led to a degree in creative writing and a first career stint teaching the subject. Then, after retiring from founding a financial planning company, I started writing and hope I can transport others.

Timothy's book list on transporting you to a new place in your life

Timothy P. Munkeby Why did Timothy love this book?

I felt like I was transported to Newfoundland. It is now on my bucket list. The personal growth of the main character, Quoyle, is profound. At first you almost despise him for his failings, but the reader ends up loving him. The cast of characters is quirky but extremely entertaining. When the house was dragged across the ice and cabled to the rocks, I could tangibly feel the cables quiver. Beautifully written.

By Annie Proulx,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Shipping News as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Irish Times International Fiction Award and America's National Book Award, this story features Quoyle, a failed journalist, a failed husband and a born loser who heads for a remote corner of Newfoundland with his two daughters and eccentric aunt.


Book cover of The Secret Army: The IRA

Mark Bulik Author Of Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York

From my list on the Irish Republican Army from the 1920s to 1990s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in one of America’s most heavily Irish areas, outside Philadelphia. After Northern Ireland exploded in 1969, IRA gunrunning cases made the local news, and came up in conversations – one friend told me his ancestors smuggled weapons in the 1920s. So I was hooked when I ran across a vivid 1922 account of an IRA shooting in Manhattan, splashed on the front page of The New York Times, my employer. My first book was about Irish rebel gunmen, the Molly Maguires of the Pennsylvania coal fields, where my Irish ancestors were miners. I’ve given lectures about the IRA’s American activities at conferences in Cork and California. 

Mark's book list on the Irish Republican Army from the 1920s to 1990s

Mark Bulik Why did Mark love this book?

A comprehensive history of the IRA from the 1916 Easter Uprising to the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles in the 1970s.

Bell did extensive research, interviewing many IRA veterans, and he offers insights on the organization’s high points and low points, of which there were many. What I liked best, though, was Bell’s writing – his words bring these people and events to life.

By J. Bowyer Bell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret Army as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Secret Army is the definitive work on the Irish Republican Army. It is an absorbing account of a movement that has had a profound effect on the shaping of the modern Irish state. The secret army in the service of the invisible Republic has had a powerful effect on Irish events over the past twenty-five years. These hidden corridors of power interest Bell and inspired him to spend more time with the IRA than many volunteers spend in it. This book is the culmination of twenty-five years of work and tens of thousands of hours of interviews. Bell's unique…


Book cover of Murder Memoir Murder

Jason Johnson Author Of Did She See You?

From my list on Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in this place, born here when the Troubles began. In one form or another, the conflict was everywhere. It was built into the infrastructure, into attitudes. It infested conversations, hurt friendships, killed old folks, children, friends, and family. Fiction from and about Northern Ireland was inevitably hamstrung by that dominant, terrible story. Since the 1994 ceasefires, our fiction has come charging forward. It’s analytical, bullish, enlightening, funny as hell, and it moves us forward by taking honest stock of what came before. I love this emerging place and its new voices. And I love to read and write stories about it. It’s a stubborn home, often maddening, truly kind, forever breath-taking.

Jason's book list on Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles

Jason Johnson Why did Jason love this book?

A masked IRA gunman presses a bullet into a small hand. He warns the boy he’ll put the same bullet into his father if instructions are disobeyed. It’s a pointed detail because it happened. The author was that boy. This story glides between fiction and nonfiction in search of truths about two rural murders and a vanished informer. But, as we have been learning here, dissecting darkness reveals only darkness. At heart this is a tale of a family’s composure, of a faithful bond to land, of being at odds with truths and lies. And that omnipresent terrain, with its moving shadows and thorny wilds, played witness to it all. This story takes place near where I grew up. It has stayed with me longer than I’m used to.

By Anthony J. Quinn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Murder Memoir Murder as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


"The result is a breathtakingly brutal piece of crime writing that is relentless in its pursuit of the truth"
Declan Burke in the Irish Times

"Among many other things, Murder Memoir Murder is a brilliant evocation of Ireland's border culture, its contentions and unwritten protocols" Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land

"Hugely evocative, deeply felt and beautifully written, Murder Memoir Murder is a brave, brutal exploration of our shared past, his family’s own personal history and the act of storytelling itself." Brian McGilloway

Murder Memoir Murder is both a memoir and a crime fiction story involving a…


Book cover of What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Irish Border?

Peter Foster Author Of What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About It

From my list on Britain after Brexit.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist who spent 15 years reporting from all over the world – Kabul, Baghdad, New Delhi, Beijing, Washington D.C. – returning to London in 2015 to report on the UK’s relations with Europe. Then Brexit happened. As a reporter, I’d chronicled the rise of China and India after 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, but I’d failed to understand how far Britain had been consumed by the forces of populism that have roiled all Western democracies. I’ve spent the last eight years reporting on the fallout, from both sides of the English Channel; trying to unpack what went wrong, and see what we can do about it.

Peter's book list on Britain after Brexit

Peter Foster Why did Peter love this book?

As a young reporter in the mid-1990s, I cut my teeth reporting the end of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and the eventual signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement peace deal. That deal was based around a constitutional ambiguity that was rocked by the Brexit vote.

This pithy volume by Queen's University Belfast politics professor Katy Hayward manages to blend absolute concision and with ambition, tracing the history of the Irish border that found itself at the heart of the UK’s often bitter Brexit negotiations with Europe.

Amid so much rhetoric, Hayward trades only in the facts while carefully framing the future choices that Brexit might bring to Northern Ireland.

By Katy Hayward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Do We Know and What Should We Do About the Irish Border? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Irish border is a manifestation of the relationship between Britain and Ireland. When that relationship has been tense, we have seen the worst effects at the Irish border in the form of violence, controls and barriers. When the relationship has been good, the Irish border has become - to all intents and purposes - open, invisible and criss-crossed with connections. Throughout its short existence, the symbolism of the border has remained just as important as its practical impact.

With the UK's exit from the European Union, the challenge of managing the Irish border as a source and a symbol…


Book cover of Flu

Lee Taylor Author Of BEDBUGS (Can you see them?)

From my list on horror that should be movies.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Lee Andrew Taylor. I write novels and screenplays, mostly in the horror genre, with a few signed by Producers since 2021. I write what I see. It’s worked for me so far, with many discussions with producers in the past few years. If I can see a movie when I read someone’s story then there’s a great chance other people will see the same thing. I am always creating new worlds inside my mind, new stories to write, and new paths to take.

Lee's book list on horror that should be movies

Lee Taylor Why did Lee love this book?

I’m recommending this book because of how well the author described the events taking place in a country where they lived. It’s another story about a virus, similar to the deadly Covid one, but the people who die come back as zombies. I love how the main characters have to deal with the outbreak & how they try to stop it.

By Wayne Simmons,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Flu as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

PROLOGUE Finaghy, Northern Ireland 17th June 2010 There was a woman screaming in his face. She was one of many, crowding around him. But he couldn't hear her. With the headgear he was wearing, Sergeant George Kelly couldn't hear what any of them were saying. They were all just muffled words. Muted. Censored. Like sounds you would hear under water. But he could see her talking, see her screaming. And he knew she was swearing. It was something about the way her lips were moving. Shaping the words as if they were heavy. Teeth showing. Almost growling rather than speaking.…


Book cover of Harry's Game

Mark Simmons Author Of Room 39 & The Cornish Legacy

From my list on espionage that reach the core of the spies’ world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been passionate about the world of espionage ever since I saw James Bond for the first time on the silver screen. I read Ian Fleming’s books in those early Pan editions and entered the exotic world of devious enemies, exotic locations, fast cars, and women. After service in the Royal Marine Commandos, I began writing in 1984. To date, I have written sixteen books and over 200 articles. Eight of the books are espionage-themed. The rest are military history and historical novels. 

Mark's book list on espionage that reach the core of the spies’ world

Mark Simmons Why did Mark love this book?

This book is set in a time period and situation, the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, which I knew well, which is what drew me to it in the first place. It is a classic espionage thriller that pitches two men against each other. Like all good books, it has that air of authenticity.

I sympathized with Harry Brown, who was sent to Belfast to hunt down the killer of a British Cabinet Minister. I found its air of tragedy invigorating, and it has quite a twist in the tail. I know it got my juices flowing to create my own agent. It, too, was made into a TV series with memorable music.

By Gerald Seymour,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Harry's Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A British cabinet minister is gunned down on a London street by an IRA assassin. In the wake of national outcry, the authorities must find the hitman. But the trail is long cold, the killer gone to ground in Belfast, and they must resort to more unorthodox methods to unearth him. Ill prepared and poorly briefed, undercover agent Harry Brown is sent into the heart of enemy territory to infiltrate the terrorists.But when it is a race against the clock, mistakes are made and corners cut. For Harry Brown, alone in a city of strangers, where an intruder is the…


Book cover of Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh 1972-2000

Seán McConville Author Of Irish Political Prisoners 1848-1922: Theatres of War

From my list on prison books based experience and truth rather than invention and sensationalism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been writing about imprisonment and other penal matters for several decades. Besides teaching, research, and publications, my career has involved the inspection of prisons in the US, UK, and Europe for several governments and for litigation across a range of issues. These are dark places, without a doubt, but seeing the lives that are lived within the walls by staff and prisoners alike has always captured and stimulated my interest and reinforced my belief in the enormous durability and adaptability of the human spirit. I have tried to communicate this in my writing and speaking.

Seán's book list on prison books based experience and truth rather than invention and sensationalism

Seán McConville Why did Seán love this book?

It is difficult for a man or woman who has in the past dedicated themselves to a movement to offer an account which departs from or goes beyond the organization’s line: too big a slice of the heart and soul has been given away.

In his account of Irish Republican imprisonment–a great deal of it first hand–sometime hunger striker Laurence McKeown does not quite break out of the gravitational field of his politics. Continuing attachment to a cause is however sufficiently balanced by an instinctive independence to distinguish this memoir from the run of the mill party-liners.

Certainly well worth a read. 

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Northern Ireland, Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland?

Northern Ireland 24 books
Ireland 303 books