Irish/Australian writer, Brendan Casey, released his debut novel, She That Lay Silent-Like Upon Our Shore in June 2023. The book has had great reviews including from Booker Prize-winning author, Anne Enright. Brendan has lived in Inistioge for many years.

‘On a remote island in the northern seas an unnamed boy is exiled from his community and cast into the Wastelands. In his struggle to survive he breaks away from the strictures of his upbringing and aligns himself with the beauty and brutality of the natural world. The Leviathan, a colossal beast that strands itself upon the shore, is the embodiment of everything the boy has yearned for and he vows to protect it with his life. The community’s religious leader, the Prelate, proclaims the creature to be the devil incarnate, triggering a physical and philosophical battle that will propel life on the island towards a bloody and inevitable end.’ (Hachette, UK)

‘An act of pure imagination: this is one of those stories that arrive fully formed in the writer’s head, asking to be written first and understood later. The result is a kind of vision, told with great attention to language, voice and tone’—Anne Enright.

Click here to buy a copy online

Click here to access a Q & A Brendan did with Books Ireland recently.