Kate has been trying to do things right. To mark an important anniversary, she plans an exquisite dinner for her family. Yet by the end of the night, the drinking games have ended in awkward silence, the guests have fled, and Kate feels herself spinning out of control. Told across the decades, this is the story of a family shattered by grief, but tied by bonds too knotty to untangle. It's the story of what happens when the past catches up with the present, and of why, despite everything, we can't help returning home. ---- READERS LOVE DINNER PARTY 'A tense, literary page-turner' 'An incredibly poignant story of a family torn by loss and grief' 'A totally compelling read about fraught family relationships, sisterhood, loss, grief and everything in between'

"Gilmartin writes beautifully" - Sunday Times Culture

"A finely observed Irish debut" - Guardian

"The language is clear and precise, the imagery vivid and imaginative... [an] assured, elegant debut" - Irish Independent

"Dinner Party is a gorgeously wrought and moving read" - Irish Times

"Dinner Party? is a beautifully observed, dark and twisty novel that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy" - Grazia

"Exquisitely captured... beautifully paced, confident and insightful" - Daily Mail

"This delicately studied tale of an Irish family's turmoil shows how pain can unite us" - Sunday Times Ireland

"Dinner Party dramatizes the way death rips through families, destabilizing the fragile structures keeping them in place" - TLS

"Here is a sprightliness and deftness of touch in Gilmartin's writing, interspersed with wry and dark humour" - The Bookseller

"Hugely accomplished... Dinner Party examines family ties - close bonds, loose links, knotty connections - and follows one member in her attempts to sever them. It makes for a compelling portrait of a woman losing her grip on reality and a perceptive study of enduring grief" - The Herald (Scotland)

"Dinner Party: A Tragedy is a strong, serious novel often leavened by warmth and good humour even as havoc and calamity lurk just beneath the surface" - Books Ireland

"A funny and moving book by a very talented writer" - The Gloss

"Gilmartin has an incisive instinct for elevating dread in a scene. From the dark humour, Joe Orton-esque theatrical setting of the opening dinner party tableau... Gilmartin displays a deft hold over the gothic flavour of the story, while allowing proper weight to fall on the all-too-human tragedy" - Irish Independent

"[A] brilliant look at family dynamics" - Irish Examiner

"Gilmartin's prose is pitch-perfect, deceptively simple yet containing some blissfully delicate and poetically accurate descriptions" - Sunday Business Post

"That intractable feeling of belonging, beyond grief and bitterness, so powerfully told here, is what ultimately runs through each of those gorgeously written pages" - The Big Issue

"Gilmartin's bestselling debut enlivens [...] inherently claustrophobic material with darkly humorous set pieces and page-turning pace" - Observer

"This debut novel begins and ends with a dinner party, weaving a tapestry of a family battered by tragedies. But this is also a surprisingly funny book, with joyously good descriptions of such events as laser hair removal. Tragedies, Gilmartin seems to say, are not sealed-off stories - they happen all the time, and are mixed in with laughter too." - Sunday Times

"Gilmartin's dialogue sparkles, and her understanding of family dynamics is sharp. "Dinner Party" is a smooth read, a true feast of dysfunction" - Star Tribune