Spring Reads from Poolbeg

You can escape a place. But you can't escape yourself.

Who would have thought a wine course could be life-changing? But a group of people signing on for wine-expert Sam's course are about to find out.

While her mother is eager for Ali to settle down and marry a doctor or an architect, Ali just wants to grab her boring life by the neck and give it a good shake to wake it up a little. Flitting from course to course and job to job, never quite fulfilling her potential, Ali yearns for excitement and adventure.

When Detta O'Neill returns to Rathinch - a village in Donegal - she is determined to make a difference.

There was a moment when Ivy Heartley could have told the truth. But she didn't.

'By turns savvy, witty and achingly sad, this is a novelist at the top of his game.' Mail on SundayForced to flee the scandal brewing in her hometown, Catherine Goggin finds herself pregnant and alone, in search of a new life at just sixteen.

She has come to a crossroads - is it too late to go her own way?