Williams, Niall – The Bell Bookshop

Time of the Child

Emma — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

WINNER OF THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD
THE INSTANT IRISH TIMES TOP 5 BESTSELLER
By the author of Four Letters of Love, the international bestseller now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan

‘I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams’ Ann Patchett
‘A rich and gorgeous book‘ The Times, The 10 best historical fiction books of 2024
‘Deeply compassionate‘ Guardian
‘Slow, rich, immaculate … One of the most affecting books I’ve ever read‘ The Times
‘Line by line, it may be the most beautifully written novel I’ve read this year‘ Washington Post

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. A visit from the doctor is always a sign of bad things to come.

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

‘Irresistible ? A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler
‘A story brimming with kindness and courage’ Mail on Sunday
‘A beautifully written novel about second chances and familial love’ Observer
‘A warm and life-affirming story about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths’ Irish Times
‘My own life feels richer having read it’ Mary Beth Keane

Four letters of love

Emma — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

SOON TO BE A MAJOR FILM STARRING HELENA BONHAM CARTER AND PIERCE BROSNAN

‘A breathtaking affirmation of miracles and the power of human love’ – The Times

‘A delicate and graceful love story . . . Extraordinarily rooted in the Irish language and landscape’ – The New York Times

‘When I was twelve years old God spoke to my father for the first time. God didn’t say much. He told my father to be a painter and left it at that . . .’ So begins Niall Williams’ magical tale about love and destiny.

Strangers Nicholas and Isabel are destined for each other – they just don’t know it yet. As they each struggle to recover from the bruises of their childhood, a chance encounter on a remote island in the west of Ireland hurls them together.

Tender, romantic and profound, the international bestseller Four Letters of Love established Niall Williams as one of Ireland’s most treasured writers, and has become a classic love story that testifies the forces of fate and faith.

Now part of the Picador Collection.

Time of the child

Emma — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A heartbreaking and life-affirming novel about small towns and second chances – from the international bestselling author of Four Letters of Love

‘Irresistible ? A powerful pleasure’ Karen Joy Fowler
‘I am such a fan of Niall Williams’ work’ Ann Patchett
_____________________________________

His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love – and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

‘My own life feels richer having read it’ Mary Beth Keane
‘A triumph … There is so much to admire: the lyrical language, how landscape and destiny intertwine, the complex bonds of community’ Ron Rash

In Kiltumper

Emma — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

‘Poignant … A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature’ IRISH TIMESWhen they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the surrounding land threatened by the arrival of turbines, Niall and Christine decided to document a year – in words and Christine’s drawings – of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.

In Kiltumper

Emma — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘I read it with enormous pleasure … Heartbreaking, uplifting … A delight’ TIM PEARS‘I loved their two voices, truthful and gentle and generous’ GEORGINA HARDING’Magical … Arresting … Read it and be restored to yourself’ IRISH CENTRAL ____________________Thirty-four years ago, when they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine’s ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the land itself threatened by the arrival of turbines just one farm over, Niall and Christine decided to document a year of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.‘A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature’ IRISH TIMES‘This book is a sheer joy’ WOMAN’S WEEKLY

This Is Happiness

Emma — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Shortlisted for Best Novel in the Irish Book AwardsLonglisted for the 2020 Walter Scott Prize for Historical FictionFrom the acclaimed author of Man Booker-longlisted History of the Rain‘Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive’ Sunday Times ‘A love letter to the sleepy, unhurried and delightfully odd Ireland that is all but gone’ Irish Independent After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain. But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish – the electricity is finally arriving. With it comes a lodger to Noel’s home, Christy McMahon. Though he can’t explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As Noel navigates his coming-of-age by Christy’s side, falling in and out of love, Christy’s buried past gradually comes to light, casting a glow on a small world and making it new.

History Of The Rain

Emma — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story…

Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil – via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain.

The stories – of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains’ Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland – pour forth in Ruthie’s still, small, strong, hopeful voice. A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination, this is an exquisite, funny, moving novel in which every sentence sings.