Luke O'Brien has left Dublin to live a quiet life on his family land on the bend of the River Sullane. Alone in his big house, he longs for a return to his family's heyday and turns to books for solace. One morning a young woman arrives at his door and enters his life with profound consequences. Her presence presents him and his family with an almost impossible dilemma. In a novel that pays glorious homage to Joyce, The River Capture tells of one man's descent into near madness, and the possibility of rescue. This is a novel about love, loyalty and the raging forces of nature. More than anything, it is a book about the life of the mind and the redemptive powers of art.

Academy Street is the heart-breaking and evocative story of one woman's life spanning six decades. Tess's childhood in 1940's rural Ireland is defined by the sudden death of her mother. Later, in New York, she encounters the ferocious power and calamity of love, and the effects of catastrophic fate. The novel resonates with the rhythms of memory and home as well as those of America's greatest city.This is an intimate story about unexpected gifts and unbearable losses, and the perpetual ache for belonging. It is exquisitely written and profoundly moving.Mary Costello lives in Dublin. Her collection of short stories, The China Factory, was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. Academy Street is her first novel.

An elderly schoolteacher recalls the single act of youthful passion that changed her life forever. A young gardener has an unsettling encounter with a suburban housewife. A teenage girl strikes up an unlikely friendship with a lonely bachelor. In these twelve haunting stories award-winning writer Mary Costello examines the passions and perils of everyday life with startling insight, casting a light into the darkest corners of the human heart.