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The Benefactors

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AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR NOVEL OF THE YEAR AT THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS
LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE

'What a joy it is to read'
Michael Magee, author of Close to Home

'I couldn't put this book down'
Sheena Patel, author of I'm A Fan

'Powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling'
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13

'A prodigiously talented author: funny and brutal by turns'
Guardian

'The style of Woolf but the heart of Dickens'
Sunday Times

'Vital reading'
Spectator

Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to eighteen-year-old boys.

Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed.

Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, multi-voice presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.
Author Wendy Erskine
Narrator Various Various, Wendy Erskine
Duration 9 hours and 44 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781399741699
Format x-book®
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
Genre Family life fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Modern and contemporary fiction
Collections The Speakies Shortlist, Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist
Availability AU, GB, IE

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