I’ll admit, this novel didn’t seize me at first. Then, after a number of chapters, I couldn’t put it down.

Sarah had a traumatic childhood. Her mom was a drug addict and her stepfather used her as a drug mule whereas she was in her teenagers. Sarah has a youthful sister, and that’s the solely factor that compels her to stick with her dad and mom. Then a few horrible occasions trigger her to throw warning to the wind and flee. Earlier than she does, she ensures that her little sister is someplace protected. She ‘borrows‘ a buddy’s passport, and flies to Eire.

She meets a person referred to as Paul Byrne on the aircraft. As soon as in Dublin, she finds herself enmeshed within the Byrne household. Regularly she realizes that she has left one form of abuse for an additional… As life in Dublin continues, Sarah finds herself needing to have identification for well being care and so forth. It’s then that she really realizes that she has backed herself right into a nook. She is an id thief.

“Saoirse smiles patiently on the skin, and seethes on the within, treading the effective line between holding her daughter’s setting steady and Paul’s mood…”

This novel was set within the Nineteen Nineties, a time in Eire when the social freedoms of girls was not as superior as it’s right now. It was additionally a time, throughout the very infancy of the Web, that it was simpler to ‘cover’, than it’s at current.

Alongside the best way, she meets a person named Dáithí (Dah-hee) whom she falls in love with. After years aside, they lastly handle to kind a life along with their two younger daughters in a distant Donegal location. An idyllic locale that’s simple to visualise. It’s Dáithí that offers her the title Saoirse (Sear-sha), the Irish phrase for freedom. Saoirse, all the time an artist, garners some approval for her artwork. This places her underneath the highlight – public scrutiny that she is aware of may endanger the life she has made for herself in Eire.

As we observe Saoirse’s life, we understand that she will not be coping along with her personal secrets and techniques. Her guilt about hiding her true id mars her newfound happiness. Then her life implodes… By the point this occurs, the reader is absolutely invested in Saoirse and feels her each emotion.

As occasions unfold, I used to be on tenterhooks – questioning if Saoirse’s would ever be freed from the choices she made as a youngster.

In summation, this was a gem of novel. I might characterize it as a literary thriller encapsulated in ladies’s fiction. It evoked many feelings, and the protagonist is a girl whom I’ll bear in mind for a really very long time. Extremely really helpful!

This evaluate was written voluntarily and my score was under no circumstances influenced by the truth that I acquired a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Celadon Books through NetGalley.

Publication date: February 24, 2026
Writer: Celadon Books

ISBN: 9781250400642  ASIN: ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ B0F5PDFNDF – 256 pages

Charleen Hurtubise is a novelist, essayist, and artist. She is creator of The Well mannered Act of Drowning, revealed in Eire and the UK in 2023. Saoirse is her US debut. She holds an M.Sc. from Trinity Faculty Dublin and an MFA in inventive writing from College Faculty Dublin, the place she has facilitated inventive writing seminars. The sixth sister in a household of 9, she spent a lot of her childhood in Michigan, her early grownup years in Boston, and has now lived half of her life in Eire, which is residence. Although she lives in Dublin along with her Irish household, the pull of Donegal by no means leaves and continues to affect her drawings and writings, together with Saoirse.

Join with Charleen Hurtubise through her web site; and/or Instagram.