Everything That Is Beautiful
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 4 Aug 2026
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- 249,00 kr
Publisher Description
"I absolutely loved it . . . So realistic about the complexity of loving people who will break our hearts."—Marian Keyes, internationally bestselling author of My Favorite Mistake
The #1 internationally bestselling, award-winning author of Snowflake returns with a luminous portrait of two Irish families riven by one great secret.
For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family. Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate—while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player.
Now, following a distressing series of events, those ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter who can’t understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago. Helen tries her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of old classmates. And Kate, living in Belfast, works to maintain her job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family's secrets.
As a family wedding looms, Niamh, Helen, and Kate find themselves face to face once again—and the knotty love that has bound them might just bring them back together again.
Told through the perspectives of three very different women, Everything That Is Beautiful is an unforgettable story of love and family, heartbreak and hope—and who we might become after we pick up the pieces.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nealon (Snowflake) untangles the ties between two Irish families in her nuanced sophomore novel. It takes place in an unnamed farming town devoted to the sport of hurling, where Niamh Ryan, 28, grew close to the neighboring Foleys as a girl. The late Liam Foley was her hurling coach, and she befriended his son Peter and younger daughter Kate. She also found a surrogate mother in Liam's wife, Helen, while coping with her own volatile mother, Mary, an alcoholic. After the news of an older Foley daughter's engagement, the families, whose relations have become strained, prepare to reunite for the wedding. Jumping around in time, the novel gradually makes clear what went wrong. A few years earlier, Niamh withdrew from a tentative love affair with Peter, and the explosive reason she gave him—revealed late in the novel—damages their friendship as well as her friendship with Kate, and tears at the Foley family. Nealon also follows Kate's troubles, stemming from disordered eating and a husband who wants to open up their marriage. Helen has her own demons, particularly after Liam's untimely death, causing her to make frequent solo trips away from home using Mary Ryan's identity. Nealon's character work is top notch, especially in the way she shows her leads struggling to accept painful truths. This is worth a look.
