Night Swimmers

Roisin Maguire lives by the sea in Northern Ireland, and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Queen's University. She has worked as a nightclub bouncer, bus driver and primary school teacher - and is a keen scuba diver and fisherwoman who swims every day of the year in the Irish Sea.

Maguire's enthralling story is full of wonderfully deft touches ... a sparkling exploration of mental health and loneliness in the time of lockdown
Full of heart and humour, with two wounded souls, Grace and Evan, at its centre and plenty to say about compassion, community and the power of cold water
Beautifully written, full of wisdom and wonderful secondary characters. I loved it
Grumpy, irascible, sharp-tongued but huge-hearted, utterly at home in her skin, Grace is a force of nature - it's impossible not to be swept up in admiration for her, and for Roisin Maguire, who has written such a warm, unsentimental and beautifully-observed book for our times
If I were in bother I'd want the Ballybrady bunch at my back. This is a truly heart-warming story of loss, recovery and above all, of community. Irreverent, unexpected, at times laugh-out-loud funny, it's a joy of a read
Exquisitely written, teeming with wonderfully relatable characters and sporting a gloriously eccentric, cranky and memorable 50-year-old heroine, Night Swimmers is one of the most emotionally intelligent novels I've read in a long time
Night Swimmers is superb: a tough, wise, redemptive novel from a writer who knows the perils of the Irish Sea as well as those of the human heart
An utterly charming take on community and connection
Fantastic hero ... 50-year-old Grace is a fabulous character - there's a touch of Olive Kitteridge in her rather misanthropic outlook, yet you can't help but wish the best for her