Niamh Mulvey – författare

Tender and profoundly moving, The Amendments is the story of three Irish women over four decades, a love story, and a family drama that will break your heart.‘An extraordinary achievement. The Amendments is about a lot of things - love, family, girlhood, growing up, sex, legacy, compassion - all blended into a moving plot’ - Jessie Burton, author of The MiniaturistNell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, parenthood is the start of a new life. For Nell, it’s the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist’s office. Because she can’t go into this without facing the painful truth: that she has been a mother before.For Dolores, Nell’s mother, the news also brings a reckoning: with the way her daughter’s life unfolded fifteen years ago, with its inextricable ties to her own past, and with the tragedy that neither of them have spoken about since . . .'Engrossing and moving' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room'It cuts to the heart of what it means to be human’ - Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory‘As significant as it is enjoyable’ - Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters'Wonderfully compelling' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the SeaSet in Ireland against the backdrop of a series of abortion referendums, The Amendments is the debut novel from Niamh Mulvey, author of Hearts and Bones, and was selected by the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Journal and VIP as one of the most anticipated novels of the year.

It was almost midday on the second day of our trip by the time I started feeling truly murderous towards Mother.For sixty-year-old crime writer Pat, her mother’s relentless cruelty and self-obsession have cast a long shadow over her life. Words are Pat’s gift, but Mother’s weapon, and Pat is reaching breaking point. She’s afraid of what she might do.And then, suddenly, Mother is gone. The spell is lifted and Pat’s life is transformed. Graham, her devoted former lover, re-enters her life, and Cynthia, the sister Pat never knew she had, appears from nowhere. But things aren’t quite right. Graham is holding his cards suspiciously close to his chest and Cynthia remains mysterious, and bears an unsettling resemblance to Mother herself.Desperate to make sense of the shifting ground beneath her, Pat begins to write a memoir, trying to untangle her own voice from the insistent echo of her mother’s. But in a world where everyone is carrying secrets, and no one is telling the whole story, how can she hope to get close to the truth? Words are weapons, and Mother seems to be having the last word even now . . .Sharp as a knife and impossibly stylish, Mother Made Me is a game of hidden truths. This is not a whodunit, it’s a who-knows-whodunit.

'Extraordinary. I loved it' - Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist'Engrossing and moving . . . gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room'Wonderfully compelling . . . haunting' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the SeaDelving into the lives of three generations of women, The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey is an extraordinary novel about love and freedom, belonging and rebellion – and about how our past is a vital presence which sits alongside us.Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, it’s the start of a new life. For Nell, it’s the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist’s office. Because she can’t go into this without dealing with the truth: that she has been a mother before, and now she can hardly bring herself to speak to her own mother, let alone return home to Ireland.Nell is running out of places to hide from her past.But to Ireland and the past is where she must go, and that is where The Amendments takes us: to the heat of Nell’s teenage years in the early 2000s, as Ireland was unpicking itself from its faith and embracing the hedonism of the Celtic Tiger. To 1983, when Nell’s mother Dolores was grappling with the tensions of the women’s rights movement. And then to the farms and suburbs and towns that made and unmade the lives at the centre of this story, bound together by the terrible secret that Nell still cannot face.Selected by the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Journal and VIP as one of the most anticipated novels of the year.

'Extraordinary. I loved it' - Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist'Engrossing and moving . . . gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room'Wonderfully compelling . . . haunting' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the SeaDelving into the lives of three generations of women, The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey is an extraordinary novel about love and freedom, belonging and rebellion – and about how our past is a vital presence which sits alongside us.Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, it’s the start of a new life. For Nell, it’s the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist’s office. Because she can’t go into this without dealing with the truth: that she has been a mother before, and now she can hardly bring herself to speak to her own mother, let alone return home to Ireland.Nell is running out of places to hide from her past.But to Ireland and the past is where she must go, and that is where The Amendments takes us: to the heat of Nell’s teenage years in the early 2000s, as Ireland was unpicking itself from its faith and embracing the hedonism of the Celtic Tiger. To 1983, when Nell’s mother Dolores was grappling with the tensions of the women’s rights movement. And then to the farms and suburbs and towns that made and unmade the lives at the centre of this story, bound together by the terrible secret that Nell still cannot face.Selected by the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Journal and VIP as one of the most anticipated novels of the year.

Tender and profoundly moving, The Amendments is the story of three Irish women over four decades, a love story, and a family drama that will break your heart.‘An extraordinary achievement. The Amendments is about a lot of things - love, family, girlhood, growing up, sex, legacy, compassion - all blended into a moving plot’ - Jessie Burton, author of The MiniaturistNell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, parenthood is the start of a new life. For Nell, it’s the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist’s office. Because she can’t go into this without facing the painful truth: that she has been a mother before.For Dolores, Nell’s mother, the news also brings a reckoning: with the way her daughter’s life unfolded fifteen years ago, with its inextricable ties to her own past, and with the tragedy that neither of them have spoken about since . . .'Engrossing and moving' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room'It cuts to the heart of what it means to be human’ - Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory‘As significant as it is enjoyable’ - Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters'Wonderfully compelling' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the SeaSet in Ireland against the backdrop of a series of abortion referendums, The Amendments is the debut novel from Niamh Mulvey, author of Hearts and Bones, and was selected by the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Journal and VIP as one of the most anticipated novels of the year.

'Vivid, memorable and beautifully crafted’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater'A brilliant collection, from a remarkable talent' - Joseph O'Connor, author of ShadowplayHearts and Bones is a book about relationships. It explores what love does to us, and how we survive it.A young woman learns to wield her power, leaving casualties in her wake, while a man from a small town finds solace in a strange new hobby. A watchful child feels a breaking point approach as her mother struggles to keep her life on track, and another daughter steps onto a stage while her family in the audience hope that she is strong enough now to take on the world.First-time lovers make mistakes, brothers and sisters try to forgive one another, and parents struggle and fail and struggle again. Teenage souls are swayed by euphoric faith in a higher power and then by devotion to desire, trapped between different notions of what might be true. Quiet revolutions happen in living rooms, on river banks, in packed pubs and empty churches, and years later we wonder why we ever did the things we did.Set between Ireland and London in the first two decades of this millennium, the stories in Hearts and Bones, Niamh Mulvey's debut collection, look at the changes that have torn through these times and ask who we are now that we’ve brought the old gods down. Witty, sharply observed and deeply moving, these ten stories announce an extraordinary new Irish literary talent.'Astute, surprising and wholly entertaining' - Irish Independent'Showcases Mulvey's strenths as a writer: the strangeness, the originality, the perfect pacing . . . highly accomplished' - Irish Times'Honest, daringly fresh and stunningly written, these stories cut right to the very essence of what it means to be young’ - Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

‘Vivid, memorable and beautifully crafted‘ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater‘A brilliant collection, from a remarkable talent‘ - Joseph O’Connor, author of ShadowplayHearts and Bones is Niamh Mulvey's collection of stories about relationships. It explores what love does to us, and how we survive it.First-time lovers make mistakes; brothers and sisters try to forgive one another; and parents struggle and fail and struggle again. Teenage souls are swayed by euphoric faith in a higher power and then by devotion to desire, trapped between different notions of what might be true. Quiet revolutions happen in living rooms, on river banks, in packed pubs and empty churches, and years later we wonder why we ever did the things we did.Set between Ireland and London in the first two decades of this millennium, the stories in Hearts and Bones look at the changes that have torn through these times and ask who we are now that we’ve brought the old gods down. Witty, sharply observed and deeply moving, these ten stories announce an extraordinary new Irish literary talent.'Highly accomplished, inventive' - Irish Times'Stunning' - Sinéad Gleeson, author Constellations'Poignant, unsparingly honest' - Sunday Independent

‘Vivid, memorable and beautifully crafted‘ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater‘A brilliant collection, from a remarkable talent‘ - Joseph O’Connor, author of ShadowplayHearts and Bones is Niamh Mulvey's collection of stories about relationships. It explores what love does to us, and how we survive it.First-time lovers make mistakes; brothers and sisters try to forgive one another; and parents struggle and fail and struggle again. Teenage souls are swayed by euphoric faith in a higher power and then by devotion to desire, trapped between different notions of what might be true. Quiet revolutions happen in living rooms, on river banks, in packed pubs and empty churches, and years later we wonder why we ever did the things we did.Set between Ireland and London in the first two decades of this millennium, the stories in Hearts and Bones look at the changes that have torn through these times and ask who we are now that we’ve brought the old gods down. Witty, sharply observed and deeply moving, these ten stories announce an extraordinary new Irish literary talent.'Highly accomplished, inventive' - Irish Times'Stunning' - Sinéad Gleeson, author Constellations'Poignant, unsparingly honest' - Sunday Independent