A brilliantly observed debut novel about two women in a small Irish community in 1994 – the year before divorce was made legal

* WINNER OF THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS: NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR 2024 *

‘A perfect book club read ... Assured and powerful’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘I loved this novel ... An addictive read’ GILLIAN ANDERSON
‘Moves between rage, forgiveness and hope ... A stonkingly good novel’ SARAH WINMAN
‘A beautiful, accomplished debut’ LOUISE KENNEDY

It’s 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley: the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her family to be with a married man in Dublin.

Returning to pick up the pieces of her old life, Colette finds that nothing – and everything – has changed. When the man to whom she is still married denies her access to their children, Colette enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey – one towards a path of self-discovery, and the other towards tragedy.

A WOMAN & HOME and NB. MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

"Beautifully written ... The novel is wonderful on what it means to live in a patriarchal society and the consequences women can suffer for trying to follow their dreams. Compelling" - Daily Mail

"Murrin’s novel is immaculately crafted, his characterisation beautifully nuanced ... Murrin’s scrutiny of the community’s prejudice is shot through with humour, while he writes perceptively about love, desire and the limitations placed on women ... A compelling, compassionate page-turner" - Observer

" Packed with shenanigans – affairs, separations, deaths, priests and politics – the narrative unfolds in a gossipy rush that is well suited to the small town milieu. But Murrin attends to a different kind of desperation too, the real and heartbreaking lack of agency for women in difficult, unsatisfying marriages in twentieth century Ireland. This is what elevates his novel, bringing the lives of his distinctive female characters into high definition ... Murrin switches with remarkable ease between the perspectives ... An engrossing read ... A gripping character-driven novel that is accessible and literary in style" - Irish Times

"If the book club queen Reese Witherspoon relocated to the Irish Republic, this would tick all her boxes ... This is an assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power in inhabiting the hopes and fears of married, middle-aged mothers. It’s well worth a slot in your book club calendar ... It is thoughtful, readable and funny, and even occasionally thrilling ... An assured and powerful debut, and Murrin shows impressive imaginative power" - Sunday Times

"‘Scandal, hypocrisy and the stigma of divorce make this Irish novel sing ... The story is crisply told ... Murrin is sceptically yet tenderly observant'" - Telegraph

"With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface" - Woman & Home, Book of the Month

"Tender, truthful and simmering with rage ... An emotionally eviscerating tale, told in deceptively calm prose" - Mail on Sunday

"[A] Lyrical debut …With nuanced observations, humour and heartbreak, the novel mirrors the backdrop of the sea, whose ebb and flow belies dangerous currents below the surface" - Woman & Home, Book of the Month June 2024

"A smashing debut ... Each of the characters is vividly rendered, and Murrin excels at portraying the rippling consequences of small-town gossip and intolerance. This is a marvel" - Publishers Weekly

"This story of tragedy and strength casts you into the waves of small-town life" - Sainsbury's Magazine

"Murrin writes with a masterful ease and confidence ... This is a strong story well told" - Debut Digest

"Murrin inhabits his female characters with impressive confidence" - Financial Times

"Alan Murrin is one of the sharpest new minds on the literary scene" - Sheerluxe

"An astonishingly assured piece of writing ... An intricate and deeply compassionate study of women’s lives and the forces that shape them" - Marie Claire

"Impressive ... The Coast Road is entirely invested in its characters [and] captures suggestively a specific moment somewhere between Éamon de Valera’s conservatism and the vainglory of the Celtic Tiger era ... It is also an intriguing addition to the the swelling library of contemporary Irish novels – Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These [and] Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting" - TLS

"The setting of The Coast Road is both viscerally realised and intensely purposeful ... Murrin’s insight into the female experience is practically note-perfect " - Service95

"A compelling snapshot of one conservative Catholic community ahead of a landmark change to domestic life ... Murrin is an astute and sensitive writer ... in Murrin’s capable hands, it’s a story that will make you think – not least about the slow pace of change in Catholic Ireland" - Spectator

"An assured, engrossing and enviably readable debut" - Guardian

"Alan Murrin's The Coast Road weaves a story of suspense, resentment and desire in 1994 Ireland ... written in prose that’s as moody, striking and lovely as the landscape ... [a] compelling, suspenseful novel" - Berliner

"This beautiful, astute, and powerful novel has been one of our favourites since its publication" - NB Magazine