Shortlist for the An Post Irish Book Award - a fantastic crime fiction line up!!

Shortlist unveiled for the An Post Irish Book Awards 2019, Ireland’s major literary event celebrating Irish writing across 16 categories, and I am super delighted that THE HIDING GAME is one of the shortlisted titles!!!

All votes are very much appreciated!! You can vote by clicking onto the link below!!

https://www.irishbookawards.irish/vote2019/

The shortlist features a diverse mix of exceptional writing from new and established writers across sixteen categories, including Novel of the Year, Children’s, Cookery, Crime Fiction, Popular Fiction, Nonfiction, Sports, Short Story, Poetry, Teen and Young Adult and Irish Language.

The An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to the widest range of readers possible. Each year it brings together a huge community passionate about books – readers, authors, booksellers, publishers and librarians – to recognise the very best of Irish writing talent.

To tie in with the announcement of the An Post Irish Book Awards shortlist, the public are now being asked to cast their votes online for the best books of the year on the An Post Irish Book Awards website anpostirishbookawards.ie. All voters will be entered into a draw to win one of four €100 National Book Tokens vouchers. Votes may be cast until 13^th November and the winners will be announced at the gala ceremony in the Convention Centre Dublin, Spencer Dock, on Wednesday 20^th November. Highlights of the awards event, presented by Miriam O’Callaghan, will be will be broadcast on RTÉ One television on Saturday 23rd November, immediately after the Ray D'Arcy Show.

Maria Dickenson, Chairperson of the An Post Irish Book Awards, says: “This year’s shortlist is once again a terrific testament to the breadth and depth of Irish writing talent. The Irish Book Awards are proud to celebrate the diversity of Ireland’s rich literary culture, and the achievements of all that contribute to this success – including writers, readers, publishers, booksellers and librarians.
“It’s fantastic to see the continued growth of the Irish Book Awards, which reflects the deep love Irish people have for reading and literature, and it’s one of the major highlights of the literary calendar. Each and every category is packed with deserving authors, and we’re looking forward to announcing the winners on 20^th November.”

David McRedmond, CEO at An Post, said: “One of the best things about the shorter, colder days and approaching winter is the An Post Irish Book Awards and having more time to get stuck into lots of books from this excellent shortlist of exciting and diverse authors. This year, we want even more people of all ages and interests to read more books, more often so you’ll be seeing our #ReadersWanted activity and events in all kinds of places over the coming weeks and months. Good luck to all the shortlisted authors.”
This year, as the official media partner of the An Post Irish Book Awards, RTÉ has introduced the RTÉ Radio 1 Listeners' Choice Award. Five of the station's biggest names - Miriam O'Callaghan, Joe Duffy, Sean O'Rourke, Ray D'Arcy and Ryan Tubridy - have each selected their favourite book of the year, which they want readers to vote for; and all five books are by Irish writers.

Head of RTÉ Radio 1, Tom McGuire, said: "We are delighted to involve five of our best known RTÉ Radio 1 presenters in this year's An Post Irish Book Awards. All five are big readers and all have chosen Irish books. We are privileged to have such a strong pool of incredible Irish writers right now who continue to do great things and make us proud. RTÉ is thrilled to continue to provide a platform to further celebrate our great writers and storytellers and we’d encourage all our listeners to take some time to explore this excellent list and vote for their favourite.”

The An Post Irish Book Awards 2019 Shortlist for Irish Crime Fiction is as follows:

Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year

• Rewind – Catherine Ryan Howard (Corvus)
• Cruel Acts – Jane Casey (HarperFiction)
• The Chain – Adrian McKinty (Orion)
• Twisted – Steve Cavanagh (Orion)
• The Wych Elm – Tana French (Viking)
• The Hiding Game – Louise Phillips (Hachette Ireland)

For further information, please log on to the An Post Irish Book Awards website or social media channels:
anpostirishbookawards.ie
Facebook: @AnPostIBAS
Instagram: @anpost_irishbookawards
Twitter: @AnPostIBAS

Living up to Cornwell Comparisons!!

AMAZING Review of The Hiding Game in today's Sunday Independent...

"Phillips' talents lie in her characterisation and plotting. The key characters are vivid and well drawn, and the plot is intricate and multi-layered...Strong flashback content serves to heighten the suspense and keep you wondering until the very end. Phillips has been compared to US crime writers James Patterson and Patricia Cornwall and with this book, she certainly lives up to that accolade."

Oh yes, I'll take fantastic reviews like this any day!!

3 Must Reads Before you Die!

An Event not to be missed...

CRIMEHAWKS at MURDER ONE FESTIVAL

Date: November 3rd

This will be a cracker of an event, so do BOOK EARLY

3 MUST READS before you DIE...with myself, and the almightly forces of Catherine Ryan Howard, Liz Nugent and Rick O'Shea!

You can book tickets below! And do check out all the other great events happening as part of Murder One!

https://ticketsource.co.uk/…/crimehawks-three-must…/e-bmqrop

"There are certain memories which will always make me cry..." True Life piece for YOU Magazine

My Short story for YOU MAGAZINE of the IRISH DAILY MAIL which formed part of the inspiration for my latest novel THE HIDING GAME…

If you can't read from picture, see short story, a true-life piece below: -

There are certain memories which will always make me cry. I know them well. I once joked to a friend that if I had been an actor, instead of a writer, those sad memories might come in handy when instant tears were required.
Strangely, over time, with some of them, their strength has grown as I have grown with them. The day my baby sister died is one of those memories, but if truth be told, at four years of age, how much could I have really known about her loss.
In my head, the actual day is very clear. I remember my mother arriving home without the baby, only she didn’t seem like my mother. Instead, she looked like a broken thing. I knew this as a child, because her physical form had changed. She was stooped, like an old woman, unable to raise her head. In this slice of memory, she is also wearing black. I see her now, the stooped broken thing, a stranger, walking past me without saying a word.
Later, I learned, my sister, Monica, was four days, 21 hours, and 10 minutes old when my mother lost her - when we lost her. And for a long time after that, we lost our mother too.
As an older person, I have tried to piece together what my mother must have gone through, being told, her perfectly healthy baby girl was no more. Or how, on the morning when she was to come home with my sister, my mother had to leave her baby behind, and she, my mother, was incapable of ever being the same again.
A deep depression took hold of her. She stopped making our clothes after Monica died. We were seldom washed. Lice got in our hair. When we were given new clothes, they were from second-hand shops, which in turn, weren’t washed either.
I recognise the signs of depression, when everything goes black, and you feel nothing in the world is going to change things. I had post-natal depression with each of our children. I know I was unwell for a time, but I was lucky, because I hadn’t lost a child.
The following year, after Monica’s death, my mother gave birth to a still born baby boy. I am guessing, his loss, took away whatever slice of hope my mother had left.
For years my mother kept the baby cloths belonged to my brother and sister in a cardboard flower box on the top of a wardrobe, unable to let them go. I remember the day I discovered them. How soft and beautiful they seemed, as I placed my hands inside, fingering the clothes my two siblings would never get a chance to wear.
The day my sister died, my mother was so grief-stricken, she couldn’t identify the body. My father was asked to do it, but he couldn’t either. It was another defining moment for my mother, because she would spend the rest of her life never knowing for sure if it was her child who died. She told me later, she would look at other little girls similar in age to Monica and wonder. I don’t think she ever stopped wondering.
Back then, people, mothers, didn’t get counselling. Depression wasn’t talked about. My mother was told to be grateful for the children she had, and to get on with it. Others, people in the hospital, and elsewhere, looked at her and most likely decided she was probably better off without another mouth to feed. She could hardly manage financially with the children she had. She was, in their eyes, a simple, silly woman from an underprivileged home, who would most likely end up pregnant again, and sure what difference did the loss of a baby make if you did the maths. My mother, as it happens, wasn’t simple or silly, and she was very good at maths, but mathematics was never going to cut it.
I was the last baby to survive, so at age four, after Monica died, I was her youngest, and up until the day my mother passed away, that statistic never changed. There is a kind of responsibility in this fact, an understanding somewhere deep inside of you that never goes away, an awareness that the brother and sister who followed you, didn’t get a chance to live, when you did.
At four years of age, it should have been impossible for me to grasp this, but yet, in my childlike way, I think I did. Some events change you. They are capable of defining choices you make, even before you make them.
When I had my own children, I understood my mother’s loss a little more. I know Monica’s death defined so much of what followed in our lives, as I equally know, losing my brother drove the sadness even deeper.
My mother was a strong woman, but for a long time, life made her fragile. There are tears on the page as I am writing this, because certain memories do that to me, and they probably always will.

Crimehawks at Murder One Festival!!

CRIMEHAWKS at MURDER ONE FESTIVAL

November 3rd

This will be a cracker of an event, so do BOOK EARLY

3 MUST READS before you DIE

With myself, and the almightly forces of Catherine Ryan Howard, Liz Nugent and Rick O'Shea!

GET TICKETS HERE

The Hiding Game - "Full of Artful Misdirection...." The Irish Times

Super thrilled with the AMAZING review of THE HIDING GAME in the IRISH TIMES...

"Louise Phillips’ new novel, The Hiding Game is a departure from her award-winning Dublin-set Kate Pearson series, a legal thriller in the Grisham mode….Phillips skilfully depicts the media manipulation of the trial…..the canvas is broad, the cast large and the plot complex and full of artful misdirection….a well-paced multi-voice narrative, Phillips moves the pieces around the board deftly…there’s an exquisite streak of malice to the writing, and if the climax leans into camp, it nonetheless makes for a satisfyingly lurid conclusion."

Read full article HERE