The Coast Road

If the book club queen Reese Witherspoon relocated to the Irish Republic, this would tick all her boxes ... This is an assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power in inhabiting the hopes and fears of married, middle-aged mothers. It’s well worth a slot in your book club calendar ... It is thoughtful, readable and funny, and even occasionally thrilling

Sunday Times

‘Scandal, hypocrisy and the stigma of divorce make this Irish novel sing ... The story is crisply told ... Murrin is sceptically yet tenderly observant'

Telegraph

With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface

Woman & Home, Book of the Month

I loved this novel. All the female characters are complex and fascinating, and full of anger and hope. I found it an addictive read

Gillian Anderson

Alan Murrin is a gifted storyteller, his characters so fully realised I fretted for them as I read. A beautiful, accomplished debut

Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES

I have been rooted to my sun bed gulping it down ... What an absolute triumph, and even more astonishing for being a debut. I loved everything about it and can’t wait to read what he does next

Gill Hornby

Alan Murrin writes with the calm, poetic fluency of the best of Irish writers. The Coast Road is set in Donegal the year before divorce became legal in Ireland, and the many themes are equally – sadly – as relevant now. Women’s autonomy is beautifully scrutinised in a shifting tempo that moves between rage, forgiveness and hope. It’s a stonkingly good novel. Just read it

Sarah Winman, bestselling author of STILL LIFE

Tender, truthful and simmering with rage ... An emotionally eviscerating tale, told in deceptively calm prose

Mail on Sunday

[A] Lyrical debut …With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface

Woman & Home, Book of the Month June 2024

Cheating husbands and wayward wives in a tiny coastal town, set during a time when divorce in Ireland was illegal, Alan Murrin’s The Coast Road had me at hello. The writing is spare and elegant, the setting atmospheric — indeed, Murrin’s Ardglas is a character in its own right. An assured, gripping debut from an author I hope to read more of

Jamie Quatro, author of FIRE SERMON

Psychologically rich, emotionally resonant, and powered by a vivid cast of characters, The Coast Road explores the intimacies that bind individuals and communities together – for better and for worse. This is an incredibly satisfying novel, told with great tenderness and tremendous storytelling verve. A book to be savoured

Colin Walsh, author of KALA

A smashing debut ... Each of the characters is vividly rendered, and Murrin excels at portraying the rippling consequences of small-town gossip and intolerance. This is a marvel

Publishers Weekly

This beautifully atmospheric novel is a dark, unsettling warning about how easily narrow attitudes can turn into dangerous ones. An eerie, urgent debut from an exciting new voice

Neil Blackmore, author of RADICAL LOVE

Propelled by a gripping narrative and powerfully drawn characters The Coast Road makes for compulsive reading. Alan Murrin has written a poignant, utterly truthful story of passions prejudice and tragedy in a small town. Brilliant

Gabriel Byrne, prizewinning actor and author of WALKING WITH GHOSTS

An exceptional debut about marriage and freedom, about love and the ways it can heal and hurt us. A must read for 2024

Sarah Crossan, author of HERE IS THE BEEHIVE

This story of tragedy and strength casts you into the waves of small-town life

Sainsbury's Magazine

Murrin writes with a masterful ease and confidence ... This is a strong story well told

Debut Digest

Murrin inhabits his female characters with impressive confidence

Financial Times

Alan Murrin is one of the sharpest new minds on the literary scene

Sheerluxe

An astonishingly assured piece of writing ... An intricate and deeply compassionate study of women’s lives and the forces that shape them

Marie Claire

Impressive ... The Coast Road is entirely invested in its characters [and] captures suggestively a specific moment somewhere between Éamon de Valera’s conservatism and the vainglory of the Celtic Tiger era ... It is also an intriguing addition to the the swelling library of contemporary Irish novels – Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These [and] Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting

TLS

The setting of The Coast Road is both viscerally realised and intensely purposeful ... Murrin’s insight into the female experience is practically note-perfect

Service95

A compelling snapshot of one conservative Catholic community ahead of a landmark change to domestic life ... Murrin is an astute and sensitive writer ... in Murrin’s capable hands, it’s a story that will make you think – not least about the slow pace of change in Catholic Ireland

Spectator

An assured, engrossing and enviably readable debut

Guardian

Alan Murrin's The Coast Road weaves a story of suspense, resentment and desire in 1994 Ireland ... written in prose that’s as moody, striking and lovely as the landscape ... [a] compelling, suspenseful novel

Berliner

Murrin's story has crispness, tenderness and observative power in equal measure

Telegraph

This beautiful, astute, and powerful novel has been one of our favourites since its publication

NB Magazine