Staff Picks: Fiction 2023

We’ve drawn together a selection of books enjoyed by our colleagues in Dublin City Libraries this year. 

You can reserve books here, and collect from a library of your choosing. 

If you don’t have a library card, contact your local library and they will help you to join; see here for more information on library membership. 

Or contact us at [email protected]. We’re happy to help. 

Happy Christmas and happy reading to all of you from all of us here in Dublin City Libraries.

Adult fiction

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy 

There is nothing special about the day Cushla meets Michael, a married man from Belfast, in the pub owned by her family. But here, love is never far from violence, and this encounter will change both of their lives forever.

The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright 

This is a meditation on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A multigenerational novel that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true. Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter - sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld 

Skewering all our certainties about why we fall in love, this book is a witty and probing tale of how the heart will follow itself, no matter what anyone says. It is Curtis Sittenfeld at her most sharp, daring and compassionate best.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch 

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray 

Can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written - is there still time to find a happy ending?

A Bird in Winter by Louise Doughty 

Bird is a woman on the run. One minute, she's in a meeting in her office in Birmingham - the next, she's walking out on her job, her home, her life. It's a day she thought might come, one she's prepared for. But nothing could prepare her for what will happen next.

Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary

She's loved him since their first encounter at school in Dublin, where she fought the playground bullies for him. He feels brave with her, she feels safe with him, and together they feel invincible, even if the world has other ideas. Set during the political and social unrest of the 1980s, as families struggled to survive and their children struggled to be free, this beautiful, vivid novel of childhood friendship is about being young, being hurt, being seen and, most of all, being loved.

Service by Sarah Gilmartin

When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to the summer she spent waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant – the plush splendour of the dining rooms, the wild parties after service, the sizzling tension of the kitchens. But Hannah also remembers how the attention from Daniel soon morphed from kindness into something darker. Their three different voices reveal a story of power and complicity, of the lies that we tell and the courage that it takes to face the truth.

Death Writes Andrea Carter

A local author dies on stage at a literary festival. Ben O'Keeffe has to sort through his complicated estate and find his murderer while she's at it.