Pure Gold – A blistering Irish short stories debut (Hardback)

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

On a small imagined island off Ireland’s west coast, love is something hard won and easily lost. The people who inhabit these stories move through days shaped by boredom, desire, and quiet desperation, watching one another closely while rarely saying what they need.

Across the collection, lives tip at unexpected angles. Two boys drift toward danger as their homes begin to fracture. A couple drives into the hills, hoping distance might repair what closeness has worn thin. A widow reaches for connection where she can find it, while moments of chaos and tenderness interrupt the routines of small town life. Nothing here is neatly resolved. Each encounter carries the risk of disappointment, or the brief promise of something better.

Pure Gold is a debut marked by emotional sharpness and restraint. These stories are attentive to the ways people deceive themselves, and to the fragile points where longing, cruelty, and hope meet. Set against an island landscape that both shelters and confines, the collection listens closely to lives on the brink of change.