Description

Discover this unforgettable, darkly funny novel about the power of friendship and the heartbreak of family life – shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021.

‘AMAZING’ Marian Keyes
‘BEAUTIFUL’ Douglas Stuart
‘FABULOUS’ Kevin Barry
‘THRILLING’ Nicole Flattery
__________

Sinead Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.

No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.

But she can’t go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Somehow, Sinead needs to seize the moment, and maybe then she can learn to be free…
__________

An Evening Standard, Observer and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
An Observer Best Debut 2020
Winner of the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer Award
Winner of the McKitterick Prize 2020
Winner of the Kate O’Brien Award 2021
Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2020

‘Extraordinary… This is writing that often reaches into your heart’ Evening Standard

‘Exhilarating…gloriously full of life’ Irish Independent

‘Feeney’s voice is at once fresh and sharp, with an eye for comedy’ Observer

Publisher Review

Comic, heartfelt and full of characters who walk off the page, it feels like Irish writing has been waiting a long time for a voice as unique and insistent as Elaine Feeney. A superb, unforgettable debut. * Sinead Gleeson * As You Were is an absolute tour de force: raw, sharp and wild. Elaine Feeney writes with such love for and understanding of her characters. It's the literary equivalent of a stiff drink beside a warm fire: a book that will rattle you before it settles you. * Lisa McInerney * As You Were was just (effing) amazing. Brimful of brilliant characters - what an exciting, visceral, poetic read. I adored the lack of sentimentality. Sinead Hynes is complex and excellently realised - a role model too, for I found her (sometime) selfishness thrillingly refreshing. As You Were gives permission to Irish women to put themselves first, and considering what we've come from, that's seismic. Elaine Feeney is such a talent. I LOVED it! * Marian Keyes * A truly original voice. Raw, urgent and uncompromising about the lengths we go to to conceal hurt, deception, psychic pain... A brilliant portrayal of the kindness of strangers, the kinship of women and the heartbreak of married love. * Mary Costello * 'An absolutely fabulous book' * Kevin Barry *