What does a bestselling author read in her spare time?
Cathy Kelly is the bestselling Irish author of 22 novels, which have been translated into several languages. She is also a Goodwill Ambassador for Unicef Ireland. Her latest novel, Sisterhood, published by Harper Collins, is out now.
“My bedside table is set to avalanche, like most writers.”
“Right now, I’m in comfort mode and rereading the first of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five blissful Cazalet chronicles, The Light Years, which starts in 1938 with a second war looming, while the Cazalets are still affected by the horrors of what they thought was the war to end all wars. Howard expertly weaves the stories of the family, their children and their servants in an almost anthropological description of upper-class life in the chaotic upheaval of the terrifying run up to World War Two and beyond. Pure comfort.
I’ve just delved into writer Vicki Notaro’s second novel, Long Story, a rollercoaster book about life in the sometimes glam/sometimes hilariously normal world of Dubliners Tara and Alex, now world-famous, and the bad boy rockstar who shakes their world. Like Notaro’s debut Reality Check, Long Story is a deliciously page-turning novel with a heart of gold and the sharpest turn of phrase around.
Like the rest of the world, I consumed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists, so begged a proof copy of Dream Count, and it is one of the books of 2025. It’s an unstoppable force of a book about four women and their sometimes painful discovery of what love actually is. As Chiamaka, a Nigerian travel writer living in the US, says straight off: “I have always longed to be known, truly known, by another human being.” Adichie’s beautifully paredback writing with its exquisite knife-like prose reaches the heart of the matter. Dream Count is as powerful as any of her other work, a must-read.” @cathykellybooks
Cathy Kelly’s latest novel, Sisterhood, published by Harper Collins, is out now.
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