15 – Rachel Ryan

Welcome to Day 15 of our West Cork Literary Festival Advent Calendar. Our author today is Rachel Ryan.

Caelainn Bradley is a best-selling author, essayist and short story writer. She publishes psychological thrillers under the pen name Rachel Ryan. Her debut novel, Hidden Lies (Piatkus; Little Brown) became an instant Irish Times bestseller and was internationally published under the title The Woman Outside My Door (Simon&Schuster.) The Irish Independent called her “one to watch,” Erin Kelly described her as “a bright new voice in psychological thrillers,” and The Irish Times called Hidden Lies “a spare, stylish, well-structured piece of work… Ryan skilfully ramps up the tension until the atmosphere is tight as a drum.” Her debut was also praised by the heavyweights of Irish crime fiction, who described it as “a rollercoaster of a read” (Liz Nugent) and “an eerie and unsettling thriller that twists relentlessly in different directions” (Catherine Ryan Howard.) She also publishes literary fiction under her own name. Her essays and short stories have been featured in publications such as Banshee, The Dublin Review and Narrative magazine. She studied English at Maynooth University and completed her dissertation in creative writing. She lives in and writes about Dublin.

Rachel is reading an extract from Hidden Lies which was published by Piatkus in January 2021. Today’s video unlocked on 15th December 2021 and may be viewed below. Closed caption subtitles are available and may be turned on or off. Click on “youtube” or “full screen” icon in the video to watch it in full screen or visit youtube here.

About our WCLF Literary Advent Calendar

2021 was another wonderful year for Irish writing and so many incredible books by Irish authors and authors living in Ireland were released this year. Even though festivals returned in-person and online not every author had the opportunity to launch their books with a public celebration or to engage with audiences in the “usual” way. We’re delighted to bring you a small selection of these authors and we’ve invited twenty-four writers to submit a short video reading from their new books. Our selection is an attempt to show the wide range of Irish writing and in particular to focus on writers whose books we feel deserve more attention and those who were not previously featured in WCLF 2021 events. We hope that you will enjoy the chance to hear these writers reading their own work and to discover some new books for your reading piles.