Heart, Be at Peace

Author Donal Ryan
Narrator Ciaran O'Brien, Toni O'Rourke, Killian Coyle, Eva Bartley, Gerry Howard, Donal Ryan, Anne Marie Ryan, Roy McMillan, various
Publisher Transworld
Publish Date 8 August 2024
Run Time 5 hours and 40 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Family life fiction, Generational sagas, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Interior life, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Sense of place.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise…’

Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two.

In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. The jobs are back, the dramas of the past seemingly lulled, and although the town bears the marks of its history, new stories are unfolding.

But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Young people are being drawn towards the promise of fast money whilst the generation above them tries to push back the tide of an enemy no one can touch…

A stunning, lyrical novel told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace can be read independently, or as a companion to Donal Ryan’s multi-award-winning novel, The Spinning Heart, voted ‘The Irish Book of the Decade’.

PRAISE FOR DONAL RYAN:

'Beautiful, compassionate ... Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

'One of the finest novelists writing today... a haunting, exquisite masterpiece.' RACHEL JOYCE

'The prose drips like honey off a spoon' SUNDAY TIMES

©2024 Donal Ryan (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Donal Ryanu2019s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society

Irish Times

An astute mosaic. Add to that Ryanu2019s gift for capturing the foolishness and fakery of human nature and the lyrical power of Irish small-town gossip . . . and you have a portrait of modern Ireland through a series of hard minds and sometimes kind hearts

Independent

Ryan dives deep into his charactersu2019 hopes and grievances, drawing out their voices with such precision that you can almost hear their breath between words . . . With any luck we will be back in this small place of vast intrigue to pick up with its people again a decade from now.

Financial Times

[The novel is] a kind of simulacrum of life, as if we have been landed in this village, have a chance to overhear its inhabitantsu2019 most private thoughts, move from one house to another, sit in the pub, discover who believes who is to blame for what, and what can be excused or forgiven

Guardian

This beautiful and moving novel, told in 21 voices, serves up heartbreak and hope in equal measure.

The Lady

It's all there. Donalu2019s trademark big heart and understanding of what it is to be human, all of it on the page and somehow beyond it. I loved it from the first page to the last u2026 there are more moments of genius in this book than I care to mention. Beautiful ... a book full of love and hope, more needed in these days than ever.

Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon

Any new book by Donal Ryan is something to celebrate and Heart, Be at Peace is no exception. He is a powerful story teller immersed in all the intricacies of human relationships, and once again he brings us a novel with a heart as big as the community he describes. Clear-eyed, deeply ambitious, sharp, lyrical as always, by turns funny and terrifying, Donal Ryan shines his light in the darkest corners, and finds something for us to love. I am blown away by the ambition and scope of this exquisite piece of writing: Heart, Be at Peace is sublime in both its sentiment and beauty.

Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

This is Donal Ryan at his most assured, moving deftly between voices, fully inhabiting every character, breaking his poor readers' hearts. Every chapter's a tiny epic. Every sentence seems to sing. Ryan's writing is both of the moment and utterly timeless in its ability to capture the essence of what it means to be alive, to love, to grieve and cling to hope.

Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

Ryan gives each a distinct voice and a rhythm to their thoughts

New Statesman

Compulsive

TLS

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