Kennedy (The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac) delivers an engaging if sometimes clunky story of a forbidden affair between a Catholic and a Protestant during the Troubles. In the mid-1970s, Cushla Lavery, a 24-year-old Catholic teacher, falls in love with Michael Agnew, an older married Protestant barrister who has a reputation for defending the rights of the Catholics. Their clandestine meetings start once Michael asks Cushla to give him and his friends Irish lessons, and soon they're spending nights together. Kennedy does a marvelous job at portraying Cushla's immense guilt and passion sparked by the affair, which offers a much-needed distraction for her from the bombings and murders claimed by the IRA and the UDA. While the romance is at the center of the story, Cushla's friendship with one of her primary school students whose father is almost killed during a sectarian attack and her troubled relationship with her alcoholic mother add substance. The straightforward prose style can be wearing in its endless accrual of detail, but Kennedy does a lovely job at capturing Cushla's mixed feelings and her determination to live her life during wartime. A solid character portrait emerges from the turbulent backdrop. Agent: Eleanor Birne, PEW Literary. (Nov.)

In mid--1970s Belfast, 24-year-old Cushla's name (from the Irish endearment, "the pulse of my heart") instantly marks her as part of the Catholic minority. A teacher at the local parochial school and part-time barmaid in her family's pub, she occupies a precarious middle ground. Some of the pub's Protestant regulars won't acknowledge her family on the street, and her seven-year-old students are on intimate terms with the violence they report on each morning during current events. When Michael, an older, married Protestant lawyer who frequents the pub, asks Cushla to teach him and his friends the Irish language, the two quickly begin an affair. When the father of one of her students is brutally assaulted, Cushla helps the boy's family. Cushla tries to keep the various strands of her life separate, but eventually they become tangled, culminating in a violent act with lasting repercussions. Kennedy (The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, 2021) draws on her personal experiences growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland in this debut novel that will appeal to fans of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain (2020).

A clandestine affair unfolds with tragic inevitability during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Cushla Lavery, in her 20s, lives with her mother on the outskirts of the battlefield that was Belfast in the 1970s. Her days are spent teaching young children in a Catholic school, and her evenings are spent tending to her mother's alcohol-fueled and increasingly erratic behavior as well as helping out in the family's pub. An encounter with Michael Agnew, an older, married, Protestant--three strikes in Cushla's world!--barrister who frequents the bar, leads her to a romantic entanglement with unplanned repercussions. Cushla is also drawn into the embattled and miserable family circumstances of spirited Davy, one of her beloved students. Davy's parents (and by unfortunate extension, their children) are almost universally loathed due to their mixed Protestant-Catholic union. Cushla's efforts to provide aid and comfort to them after Davy's father is the victim of a savage partisan attack also lead to unintended, devastating consequences. Kennedy's debut novel captures the odd ability of war-zone residents to be simultaneously adrenalized by and resigned to their environment. She also, nonchalantly, delivers the mundane details of generations of terrorism gone amok: The fire brigade may be warned in advance of a fire bombing, because what is the use of destroying a perfectly good house when sending a warning message to its residents? The incremental and corrosive effects of constant violence, and the vigilance required in its face, are keenly felt by Kennedy's characters as she explores the roles of violence and chance in their complicated lives in a circumstance where it's "not about what you do" but whether you're one of "us" or one of "them." Kennedy's characters are born and live under dark stars; she illuminates the unescapable harms that occur in that darkness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.