Wendy Erskine

Dance Move

'A gripping, wonderfully understated book that oozes humanity, emotion and humour.' Guardian Winner of the 2020 Butler Literary Award Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019 Shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019 Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2019 ‘Wendy Erskine’s first collection, Sweet Home . . . is every bit as good as her early stories in the always astute Stinging Fly magazine promised.’ Jon McGregor, New Statesman Set in the author’s native Belfast, the ten stories in Sweet Home lay bare the heartbreak and quiet tragedies that run under the surface of everyday lives. A lonely woman is fascinated by her niqab-wearing neighbours; a middle-aged teacher becomes obsessed with a young Gaelic football player; and an employer covers for his two employees caught having sex in a public toilet. Wendy Erskine offers perfectly formed, brilliantly observed portraits of people trying to carve out a life for themselves, all the while being buffeted by the loss, grief and regret that come their way. Warm, compassionate and funny, Sweet Home captures life in contemporary East Belfast, in all of its forms. A Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, TLS.

Sweet Home

The Benefactors

Meet Drew Lord Haig, called upon to sing the obscure hit from his youth at a paramilitary event. Or Max, who recalls an eventful journey to a Christian film festival. Meet Mrs Dallesandro, in the tanning salon on her wedding anniversary dreaming of a teenage sexual experience. And Sonya, who scours the streets of Belfast for the missing posters of her dead son. In Dance Move, the new collection of stories from Wendy Erskine, we meet characters who are looking to wrest control of their lives, only to find themselves defined by the moment in their past that marked them. In these stories – as in real life – the funny, the tender and the devastating go hand in hand. Full of warmth, the familiar and the strange, they are about what it means to live in the world, how far you can end up from where you came from, and what it means to look back.

The Moving and Utterly Enthralling Debut Novel about Class, Power and What Being a Parent Means

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2025 'I couldn't put this book down' Sheena Patel, author of I'm a Fan 'A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut' Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13 'Perfectly pitched, surefooted, and charged with feeling' Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel about intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means. Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to 18-year-old boys. Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed. Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.

'Wendy Erskine's first collection, Sweet Home . . . is every bit as good as her early stories in the always astute Stinging Fly magazine promised.' Jon McGregor, New Statesman Set in the author’s native Belfast, the ten stories in Sweet Home lay bare the heartbreak and quiet tragedies that run under the surface of everyday lives. A reclusive cult-rock icon ends his days in the street where he was born; a lonely woman is fascinated by her niqab-wearing neighbours; a husband and wife become enmeshed in the lives of the young couple they pay to do their cleaning and gardening. Set in contemporary East Belfast, these eleven acutely observed short stories come charged with regret and sorrow, desire and yearning. With clear-eyed compassion and wry humour, Wendy Erskine deftly lays bare her characters’ struggle to maintain control in an often cruel world, where tragic events cast long shadows. Sweet Home heralds the arrival of a wonderfully compelling and truly distinctive voice from Northern Ireland.

When Christine's boyfriend goes missing in Amsterdam, she tries to find out what happened to him, eventually resorting to the Endor Centre in Belfast city centre. Before long, however, Christine finds that she has unleashed a new, powerful, uncontrollable lover. Jamie is a member of a country gospel act, the Devine Family, led by his pastor father. But he harbours a secret passion for a black metal group, Bryght Gehenna, and becomes ready to embrace destruction and darkness.

Wendy Erskine

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