Fiction

Author Danielle McLaughlin. Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Author Danielle McLaughlin. Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Cork writer Danielle McLaughlin was a late starter in the writing game, but since her debut short story collection was published 11 years ago, she’s heaped success upon success. Rituals, her second novel, brings more of her precisely crafted prose, offering a quietly devastating portrait of a woman unravelling and somehow, subtly pulling the threads of herself back together.

In Rituals, we get to the very heart of Joan, a ­middle-aged ­civil servant who’s been ­abruptly placed on leave ­after a workplace incident.