Anne Haverty

When William Hazlitt published Liber Amoris, his 'book of love', in 1823, scandal rocked the literary world. He had chosen as the object for his grand Romantic passion a mere serving maid - and she had disillusioned him by proving just as tawdry as all the rest. But what of Sarah Walker, the victim of Hazlitt's unfortunate obsession? In a maginificent work of imaginative empathy, Anne Haverty rescues her from silence and obscurity to let her tell her side of the story. 'He has put me in a book,' she says. 'He had but a frail steel nib for his weapon but he has destroyed me by it as clean as if he used a blade and impaled me to its point.' She describes her gradual seduction by the wild man of letters - day by day, hour by hour - as she tries to ward off inappropriate advances without offending him, but can't help being fascinated by his stories of revolutionary France and the pleasure of Italy. The Far Side of Kiss is a gripping, heartbreaking novel of Romantic folly and below-stairs pragmatism. With an extraordinary lightness of touch and considerable wit, Haverty summons up London life in a nineteenth-century boarding house and the mutual incomprehension between the literary world and the working class. She creates in Sarah an unforgettable character full of silliness and wisdom, unhappiness and vivacity, naivety and intelligence. By the final chapter, readers can only sympathise with Mr Hazlitt and be in love with Sarah themselves.

The Far Side of a Kiss

Emma Donoghue

Maeve Binchy

Kate O'Riordan

Clare Boylan

Deirdre Purcell

Seven Irish writers describe the revival of a legendary Dublin hotel, in individual chapters written by Maeve Binchy, Clare Boylan, Emma Donoghue, Anne Haverty, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Kate O'Riordan, and Deirdre Purcell.

Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel

Tom, an American investor on a mission to help the Irish people climb out of the mud, arrives in Dublin to find a country far less needy than he imagined. The economy appears to be in overdrive, and so are the characters, in this hugely entertaining and mordant take on Ireland past and present.

The Free and Easy

When William Hazlitt published Liber Amoris, his 'book of love', in 1823, scandal rocked the literary world. He had chosen as the object for his grand Romantic passion a mere serving maid - and she had disillusioned him by proving just as tawdry as all the rest. But what of Sarah Walker, the victim of Hazlitt's unfortunate obsession? Anne Haverty rescues her from silence and obscurity to let her tell her side of the story. She describes her gradual seduction by the wild man of letters - day by day, hour by hour - as she tries to ward off inappropriate advances without offending him, but can't help being fascinated by his stories of revolutionary France and the pleasures of Italy.

Martin Hawkins, a brilliant young historian, turns his back on his academic career and returns home to the family sheep farm. It is here that Missy, a sheep that has been improved with the introduction of human genes, begins to make a significant impact on his imagination.

Anne Haverty

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