Description
It’s 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley – the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.
Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey – one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy.
Brilliantly observed from a sharp new literary talent, The Coast Road is a novel about a closed community and the consequences of daring to move against the tide.
MEDIA REVIEWS
If the book club queen Reese Witherspoon relocated to the Irish Republic, this would tick all her boxes … This is an assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power in inhabiting the hopes and fears of married, middle-aged mothers. It’s well worth a slot in your book club calendar … It is thoughtful, readable and funny, and even occasionally thrilling … An assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power – Sunday Times
‘Scandal, hypocrisy and the stigma of divorce make this Irish novel sing … The story is crisply told … Murrin is sceptically yet tenderly observant’ – Telegraph
With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface – Woman & Home, Book of the Month
I loved this novel. All the female characters are complex and fascinating, and full of anger and hope. I found it an addictive read – Gillian Anderson
Alan Murrin is a gifted storyteller, his characters so fully realised I fretted for them as I read. A beautiful, accomplished debut – Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES
