Aingeala Flannery

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The Amusements

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

If you like dark humour, superbly drawn characters, caravan parks, fish suppers and slot machines, The Amusements is what you've been waiting for

Brilliant. Dramatic, heartfelt, sometimes shocking and sad

Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year

The writing, so true to small-town life, is both shrewd and enlarging. Flannery writes like a grown-up; her flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page

Its effortless evocations of the tides and pulls of small-town life are note perfect . . . It's often very funny, sometimes sad, always authentic and perceptive, and hugely entertaining. Beautiful

A cracker of a book. Think Kevin Barry crossed with Elizabeth Strout. The writing is that good

[The setting of] Tramore is not only a character - it is the main character of The Amusements, with its quotidian dramas and failed epiphanies and the magnetic pull it has over everyone who encounters it, from those on a family holiday, to those who are born, bred and die there. It was a joy to read

A fascinating portrait of small-town life. A joy to read

A fresh, funny, fiercely Irish novel about the vagaries of friendship, and Aingeala Flannery - wholly in charge of her lovable, eccentric cast - writes like a dream

A vibrant, evocative debut that brings the exploits of an Irish coastal town brilliantly to life

A deft collage of a novel. Ambitious and fun . . . a wonderful debut

A brilliant book. I loved meeting all these characters, who jumped off the page and stayed in my head. Aingeala Flannery is a real talent

The Amusements kept me up half the night. Aingeala Flannery is a brilliant writer. Her sentences crackle with life, energy and devastating insight into the human condition. She writes with a rare combination of compassion and black humour. Her characters live on in my mind like people I have always known

A fantastic debut novel . . . it paints a vivid picture of this seaside town, we were gripped

[Flannery] skilfully observes life in a small town and roads that are dreamed of but not taken. Characters that have a great sense of longing & yearning to leave this town behind, and yet somehow always get pulled back. A great read!

As addictive as slot machines and as exhilarating as waltzers. A great sense of place and compelling characters

[Carries] notes of Donal Ryan and Roddy Doyle for me . . . A nostalgic masterpiece, loaded with possibility and weighed down with reality, guaranteed to be this summer's must-read

Sharp as a vogue tomato slicer, it's seaside Ireland minus the dreary caravan mentality or sentimentality

If you buy just one novel next month make sure to buy Aingeala Flannery's debut. Funny, sad and most of all beautifully written

Like [William] Trevor, a wry wit permeates Flannery's storytelling

Flannery's depiction of the sounds, smells and seediness of the typical seaside resort is sharp and vivid

Charming and empathetic . . . Flannery's immense skill lies in her ability to inhabit such a wide range of characters, stepping into their shoes and capturing the nuance of each voice, each set of hopes and dreams and private, devastating heartaches

THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING. The characters are painfully, beautifully real, the writing is IMPECCABLE. Brutally honest about what we want for ourselves versus what we actually get, I LOVED it

My book of the year . . . I loved every page

Flannery excels at working that counterpoint of dark and light, comedy in the face of tragedy . . . A brilliant debut

Quietly beautiful . . . Flannery's characters are very well drawn, as is her understanding of small-town mores and idle gossip. It's a book that leaves and impression long after the final page

In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach . . . 
 
Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is an unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken. It is a brilliantly observed portrait of life in a small town.

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach . . . 
 
Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is an unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken. It is a brilliantly observed portrait of life in a small town. 
 
'THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING. The characters are painfully, beautifully real, the writing is IMPECCABLE . . . I LOVED it' Marian Keyes 
 
'Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year' Sunday Independent 
 
 'Flannery's flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page' ANNE ENRIGHT 
 
© Aingeala Flannery 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Aingeala Flannery is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She has completed an MFA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin. Her short story 'Visiting Hours' was the winner of the 2019 Harper's Bazaar Short Story Competition. In 2020 and 2021, she was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland. Her work has appeared in The Bath Anthology and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One as part of the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition. She lives in Dublin. The Amusements, her first book, is shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers' Week

The Amusements

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If you like dark humour, superbly drawn characters, caravan parks, fish suppers and slot machines, The Amusements is what you've been waiting for

Brilliant. Dramatic, heartfelt, sometimes shocking and sad

Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year

The writing, so true to small-town life, is both shrewd and enlarging. Flannery writes like a grown-up; her flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page

Its effortless evocations of the tides and pulls of small-town life are note perfect . . . It's often very funny, sometimes sad, always authentic and perceptive, and hugely entertaining. Beautiful

A cracker of a book. Think Kevin Barry crossed with Elizabeth Strout. The writing is that good

[The setting of] Tramore is not only a character - it is the main character of The Amusements, with its quotidian dramas and failed epiphanies and the magnetic pull it has over everyone who encounters it, from those on a family holiday, to those who are born, bred and die there. It was a joy to read

A fascinating portrait of small-town life. A joy to read

A fresh, funny, fiercely Irish novel about the vagaries of friendship, and Aingeala Flannery - wholly in charge of her lovable, eccentric cast - writes like a dream

A vibrant, evocative debut that brings the exploits of an Irish coastal town brilliantly to life

About Aingeala Flannery

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