Emmet and Me

From the author of the Not The Booker Prize shortlisted Not Thomas I once had a forbidden friend. He was funny and brave, had scabbed knees and grubby shorts, a gleeful grin and fathomless eyes. My co-conspirator and hero. He called himself Emmet. Summer 1966. Claire and her brothers are packed off to Granny Connemara when their mother runs away. Granny's rural Irish cottage is very different to their Cardiff city home, the peaty air thick with unspoken secrets. With no sign of Uncle Jack picking them up at the end of the holidays, there is school to be survived. Granny is formidable and the children unsettled by the conversations they're excluded from. Will Mother ever return? Will they ever get home? Why does their father hate everything to do with Ireland? The only light on Claire's horizon is an out-of-bounds friendship... and it will change her life forever. 'Very special, very powerful... a captivating novel that will leave its mark on every reader.' Mairéad Hearne, Swirl and Thread 'This book is deeply affecting and haunting... I read it twice to see if I would blub as much the second time. I did.' Marie Gameson '...beautiful, perfectly set in time and place...beneath [the] sweetness was a darkness that was heartbreaking' Sandy Taylor 'The blossoming friendship between would-be writer Claire and orphan Emmet is crisply and touchingly told, the warmth between them competing with the cold-hearted regimes of the industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and the septic priests and Brothers of 1960s Ireland.' Jon Gower

Sara Gethin's debut novel, Not Thomas, written in the voice of a neglected five-year-old boy, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker prize in 2017, the Waverton Good Read Award in 2018, and was optioned for television. She writes for children as Wendy White, and won the 2014 Tir nan-Og Award for her debut children's book. She grew up in Llanelli and worked as a library assistant before becoming a primary school teacher. While Sara's home is still west Wales, she and her husband spend much of their free time in Ireland. She is a member of Hay Festival's Writers at Work.