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A Novel
by Louise Nealon
The #1 internationally bestselling, award-winning author of Snowflake returns with a luminous portrait of two Irish families riven by one great secret.
For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family. Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate—while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player.
Now, following a distressing series of events, those ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter who can't understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago. Helen tries her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of old classmates. And Kate, living in Belfast, works to maintain her job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family's secrets.
As a family wedding looms, Niamh, Helen, and Kate find themselves face to face once again—and the knotty love that has bound them might just bring them back together again.
Told through the perspectives of three very different women, Everything That Is Beautiful is an unforgettable story of love and family, heartbreak and hope—and who we might become after we pick up the pieces.
"A deeply moving exploration of all the joys and pains of living in community. Beautifully written, funny, emotionally complex and always quietly hopeful. I loved it." —Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, award-winning author of Ordinary Saints
"It's rare to read a novel where rage and compassion are so delicately balanced on each page. This book made me want to open a window and shout." —Sheila Armstrong, author of How To Gut a Fish
"A striking portrait of three women and their strength and devotion in the face of devastation. Everything That is Beautiful is wrought with tension, humour, irreverence and warmth. Louise Nealon captures so well the nuances of Irish family life—the chaos, the imperfections, and the unconditional love. I felt I was in the family kitchen, experiencing their laughter and celebrating their triumphs—and heartbreak. The Foleys will inhabit your heart long after the last page." —Charleen Hurtubise, author of The Polite Act of Drowning
This information about Everything That Is Beautiful was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Louise Nealon is a writer from County Kildare, Ireland. In 2017, she won the Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition and was the recipient of the Francis Ledwidge Creative Writing Award. She has been published in the Irish Times, Southword, and The Open Ear. Nealon received a degree in English literature from Trinity College Dublin in 2014 and a master's degree in creative writing from Queen's University Belfast in 2016. She lives on the dairy farm where she was raised.
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