Imprint
- Sceptre
- Sceptre
- Sceptre
- Sceptre
Ireland, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
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Imprint
Sceptre
- Hardback Aug 26, 2025 | 9781399741668 | RRP $49.99 Pre-Order
- Trade Paperback Jun 24, 2025 | 9781399741675 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- e-Book Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741682 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- Audiobook Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741699 | RRP $44.99 Pre-Order
-
Imprint
Sceptre
- Hardback Aug 26, 2025 | 9781399741668 | RRP $49.99 Pre-Order
- Trade Paperback Jun 24, 2025 | 9781399741675 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- e-Book Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741682 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- Audiobook Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741699 | RRP $44.99 Pre-Order
-
Imprint
Sceptre
- Hardback Aug 26, 2025 | 9781399741668 | RRP $49.99 Pre-Order
- Trade Paperback Jun 24, 2025 | 9781399741675 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- e-Book Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741682 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- Audiobook Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741699 | RRP $44.99 Pre-Order
-
Imprint
Sceptre
- Hardback Aug 26, 2025 | 9781399741668 | RRP $49.99 Pre-Order
- Trade Paperback Jun 24, 2025 | 9781399741675 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- e-Book Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741682 | RRP $34.99 Pre-Order
- Audiobook Jun 19, 2025 | 9781399741699 | RRP $44.99 Pre-Order
The darkly funny, and gripping debut novel from a literary star: three women from very different families are brought together when their sons are accused of assaulting a young woman whose social standing they see as far below their own.
'Brims with humanity . . . I adored it'
Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days
'A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut'
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
'Perfectly pitched, surefooted, and charged with feeling'
Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses
From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel about intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means.
Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to 18-year-old boys.
Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed.
Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.
Praise for The Benefactors: 'So fresh, so sharp, so wry, so alive' Lucy Caldwell
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Wendy Erskine's writing is inimitable - so fresh, so sharp, so wry, so alive; so much contemporary fiction feels flat and fake in comparison. In all of its glorious polyphony, The Benefactors brims with humanity. It's got snap, it's got sparkle, it's got soul. All of Belfast is here, all of life. I adored it.
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A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut novel from the excellent Wendy Erskine. The Benefactors follows the fallout from one young woman's awful experience of the young men around her, and explores the many ways in which lies are told, perpetuated, and excused. Wendy Erskine understands young people in all their complicated awfulness and brilliance, and the way she inhabits and carries such a range of troubled voices in this novel is a wonder. We're all better off for being able to read a novel as rich as this
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'Wendy Erskine is off doing her own, consummate thing. The Benefactors is a novel as perfectly pitched, surefooted, and charged with feeling as her gleaming, precise stories
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Wendy Erskine flourishes her captivating style in The Benefactors, with a depth of insight which at times feels like epiphany. Erskine actualises riveting, propulsive humanity in this mosaic of a community, achieving a distinction of narrative empathy that gleams on the page. The prose conveys profound insight with such lightness, the characters a richness of nuance and rare humour. The Benefactors is an essential novel, and Wendy Erskine an essential novelist. It is an inspired testament to survival - I was incredibly moved by it.
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I couldn't put this book down.,Wendy has skilfully written herself out of the story completely, her hand has disappeared. As a reader, you are totally transported into these characters lives. They are living people and I missed them when I finished
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Books are made of words. And sentences. Of stories and sounds and of voices. The Benefactors is further proof that Erskine is a true master of all the above. There are absolutely loads of words in this book - every single one of them is well chosen - because Wendy Erskine chose them. The clue is in the title - with The Benefactors, Wendy Erskine has given us a gift
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A truly remarkable novel - The Benefactors is both intimate and panoramic, full of clear-eyed compassion and wry wit, and with a cast of characters so vividly drawn it feels like you've known them all your life. This is powerful, masterful storytelling by one of the most exciting writers at work today
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