A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances - from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love

**The instant Irish Times Top Ten bestseller**

A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances - from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love

‘Irresistible … A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler
‘Slow, rich, immaculate ... One of the most affecting books I've ever read’ The Times
‘I am such a fan of Niall Williams’ work’ Ann Patchett
‘A beautifully written novel about second chances and familial love’ Observer
‘A story brimming with kindness and courage’ Mail on Sunday
‘A warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths’ Irish Times
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Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

'My own life feels richer having read it' Mary Beth Keane
'A triumph ... There is so much to admire: the lyrical language, how landscape and destiny intertwine, the complex bonds of community' Ron Rash

"There is something of Trollope’s Barsetshire here, in the sense of an entire place rendered in fine detail ... Williams’s phrasing is immaculate and even the smallest characters are drawn with attention and detail. But Dr Troy is the heart of this slow, rich novel. The scene in which he dances with the baby in a quiet kitchen is one of the most affecting I’ve read" - The Times

"My new favourite ... A study in human community that made me laugh out loud and remember how to love even the people who cause others so much suffering, and especially those who come together to ease it" - NEW YORK TIMES

"Williams, always skilful and compelling, has wrought something plausible out of one of the oldest stories we have ... Williams’s delicacy in depicting the mysteries of interactions both human and divine is quietly satisfying ... Williams excels in his characterisation" - FINANCIAL TIMES

"There’s a quiet grace to this slow-paced, poetic novel set in rural Ireland in the run-up to Christmas 1962 ... A story brimming with kindness and courage" - Mail on Sunday

"Readers looking to get into the Christmas spirit early this year will find plenty of it in Niall Williams’s new novel, Time of the Child, a warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths" - Irish Times

"A sublime tale of small-town Irish life ... A slow-burning, finely crafted novel about second chances, humanity and familial love, Time of the Child rewards close reading ... Williams’s descriptive language is extraordinary – his use of understatement and irony artfully deployed, his characterisation sublime. I find it astonishing that, despite his global success, he has yet to win a big award" - Observer

"Williams quietly lets us glimpse the story’s underlying harshness between the lines of his warm and finely turned festive tale ... A lyrical, mid-20th-century tapestry set in a slowly transforming society as the advent of electricity revolutionises everyday life" - Daily Mail

"Kind and funny ... Akin to Dickens in his observations, Williams’ descriptions of gesture hint at his characters’ interior landscapes" - WOMAN & HOME

"What makes this so compelling and enjoyable is Williams’s transparent love of his characters and delight in his setting" - Observer

"Williams’ prose .... is written with a turn of phrase that makes the reader want to underline something on every page. I suggest we all buy his books, pushing him into that realm of globally fashionable Irish writers, but more importantly, sharing with a vast audience his humane and poetic world view" - Financial Times

"Williams has painted a lush, wandering portrait of Faha, a village back in time in County Clare, Ireland … We are invited to lower ourselves into a slower kind of time ... [A] bighearted novel" - New York Times

"Williams has the eye of a poet and the raconteur’s knack for finding a tale in the most unpromising nook of everyday life" - Daily Mail

"With his silver ear for speech and extreme attentiveness to the Heaneyesque “music of everyday”, Mr Williams treads softly on the dreams of youth and memories of old age" - Country Life

"A surge of language, beautiful and enchanting, a novel that weaves a love of literature into its own moving tale" - Guardian

"A luminously written, magical work of fiction" - New York Times Book Review