Louise O’Neill

Louise O’Neill grew up in Clonakilty, a small town in West Cork, Ireland. Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014. Only Ever Yours went on to win the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards; the Children’s Books Ireland Eilís Dillon Award for a First Children’s Book; and The Bookseller‘s inaugural YA Book Prize 2015. Louise’s second novel, Asking For It, was published in September 2015 to widespread critical acclaim. She went on to win the Specsaver’s Senior Children’s Book of the Year at the 2015 Irish Book Awards, the Literature Prize at Irish Tatler’s Women of the Year Awards, and the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz award. Asking For It was voted Book of the Year at the Irish Books Awards 2015 and spent 52 consecutive weeks in the Irish top 10 bestseller list. The New York Times called it “riveting and essential” and The Guardian named Louise “the best YA fiction writer alive today.” Both novels have been optioned for screen. Louise’s first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in March 2018, followed shortly by The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid which was released in May 2018. Her second novel for adults, After the Silence, was published in September 2020 and won the Crime Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. It has been optioned for screen by Tiger Aspect.