Mary Costello: Barcelona

In a Spanish hotel room, a marriage unravels as a young wife is haunted by a past love. A father travels to Paris to meet his scientist son and is exposed to his son's true nature. A woman attends a reading by a famous author and comes to some painful realisations about her own marriage.

The stories in Barcelona reveal the underlying disquiet of modern life and the sometimes brutal nature of humanity. Whether on city streets, long car journeys or in suburban rooms, we glimpse characters as they approach those moments of desperation – or revelation – that change or reshape fate.

Mary Costello lives in Galway. Her short story collection, The China Factory (2012), was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. Her first novel, Academy Street (2014), won the Irish Novel of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was named overall Irish Book of the Year. The River Capture, her second novel, was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Dalkey Book Awards and the Kerry Group Awards.

The Irish Times Bestseller Barcelona was published in Spring 2024.