I’m glad so many of you guessed one of these and pretty much no-one guessed the other! Our two reads for April are very, very different but both *very* worthwhile.
CIarán McMenamin’s Skintown is a debut novels set in the 90s in Enniskillen where a couple of young lads get caught in a huge drug deal on the rave scene between provisionals of both stripes just after the IRA ceasefire.
I read the first page of this and was immediately hooked. It’s rattlingly written, hugely immersive, funny too. Adored it.
Our second choice is the non-fiction Raqqua Diaries written by an anonymous 24 year old Syrian who documents life in Raqqa under Assad, with the civil war and when ISIS bring what can only be described as a medieval death cult to his home.
I genuinely think this needs to be read by everyone. Everyone who wants to in any way understand the impossible situation the regular people of Syria have been put in and have another view of why so many of them flee their homes and become refugees.
It’s heartbreaking.
Our friends at Dubray Books are offering the usual 10% online discount if you use the code RICKAPR17.
Now, who’s in?