Novels
Below you will find the novels of the Ballyrein trilogy:
Time of the Muse
Margaret and JC were waiting in the car. The engine was on. Pretending to have forgotten a book, I went back inside the house one last time. The furniture seemed made of dark silk and the walls were veils. As I prowled the rooms, a stranger in the place now, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window, and saw a criminal, an evil person. It kind of surprised me, for my pals and even the teachers had always seen me as a nice, polite lad.
They were wrong, however, and only I knew.
I came out without any book. Margaret sniffed but said nothing. I got in the back of the car. As we drove towards their house in Oakland Heights, it was like the car was my hearse. I recalled how farmers and their families had stood on the side of the main road as my father’s cortege went by. The road was empty now for my own final journey. It was evening. The clouds hung heavy across the last fields before the suburbs started.
The first novel of the Ballyrein trilogy follows the fortunes of Eugene Griffin, a youth banished by the IRA to London in the late 1980s. He falls in love with Rachael Dove, a busker, who dreams of fame and fortune. Eugene becomes her reluctant muse. Haunted by their love, he continues his dark, often hilarious path through life, to be blinded almost by the light at the end of the tunnel.
Available October 2024
Return to Starville
It is the hour before the light starts to fade. Jack drives up Joseph Mary Plunkett Street and stops at the Market Square. The cars behind him overtake, one after the other. He lowers his window and calls a drinker over from outside Hegarty’s. The boy is young, twenty, not even that, his arm held tight around a painted filly.
‘You want to buy your pals a round?’
‘It would certainly make a change, Jack.’
Jack swipes a wad of notes out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket and smiles benignly. ‘That should cover it.’
The young man’s eyes light up. As he steps across to the pub with the cash, the filly stalls a second so Jack can take in her young body; she gives him a look that a man without money or influence will always be denied, before turning away…
Novel two of the Ballyrein trilogy takes the reader to the Irish town of Ballyrein, and to the dying marriage of maverick businessman, Jack Starmaker, and singer, Rachael Dove. Beset by tragedy and embroiled in political controversy, Jack battles fate in his own unorthodox way. When he finally meets his errant wife again, he must acknowledge that there is no going back to the old normality.
Available Winter 2024/2025
Berlin Sugar
I walk away from the main road, and along the side streets where it is quieter. When I turn a corner, I spot my eldest son, Christy, coming towards me. He is wearing a hoodie, scuffed jeans and broken trainers. He smiles when he spots me and raises a hand in greeting. This chance encounter with my own flesh and blood is the birthday present I dared not wish for.
I step up my pace, but then black paintwork glints in the corner of my eye, as if wanting to blind me. A car eases to a halt and the rear passenger door swings open. A young woman smiles sharply from inside her cocoon. She has green eyes and ginger locks, and is holding a small black tube, which I presume to be a gun.
‘Ignatius Sunday,’ she says. ‘Please get in.’
The last book in the Ballyrein trilogy is set in Berlin, where Ignatius Sunday, a struggling writer, gets involved in a secret business venture that leads him into an underground world. Despite the confusion and danger, this murky zone may be what Ignatius has been waiting for all his life, especially when he sets forth on his final mission ‒ to rescue the faded pop star, Rachael Dove.