Cath is worried about her friends. DanDan is struggling with the death of his ex, Lucy is drinking way too much and Steph has become closed off. A weekend away is just what they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodge, to the wilds in the west of Ireland.
But the weekend doesn't go to plan. JJ is more concerned with getting high than spending time with them, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revenge. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives on their doorstep in the dead of night with a gun in his hands, nothing will be the same again for any of them . . .
Honest, moving and human, Rockadoon Shore is a novel about friendship and youth, about missed opportunities and lost love, and about the realities of growing up and growing old in modern-day Ireland. Highly energetic and tensely humorous, it heralds a new and exciting voice in contemporary Irish fiction.
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[They had that look about them, that self-important snarl of youth that said 'we're going to give you no peace, and you'd better get used to it']***
(@johnmurrays, 18 April 2017, 304 pages, paperback, copy from @AmazonUK #AmazonVine)
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So this is my first time reading the author. I'd like some more please. I thought this was a great book. I'm not sure why the edges of the pages were coloured orange though. But I digress. This offers great insight into that old chestnut friendship and what really simmers beneath the surface of a group of people who've known each other a long time. I'm sure you can imagine the competing with each other, the bitching, the snide one man upship and the bed hopping. All the usual trials and tribulations between the friends are magnified in the remote location of the lodge where they can't run from their issues. Malachy, the creepy neighbour who watches them and pushes his way into the lodge brandishing a shotgun doesn't help ease the tension. This is an honest, painful book.
