Pilgrim

"Deeply moving and evocative prose. Haunting, tender yet hopeful. Pilgrim is a beautiful read that lingers." Best-selling international author, Carmel Harrington. "In this cynical age, it's a joy to encounter such sincerity and wonderfully unexpected to see contemporary fiction as a profession of fervent yet gentle faith. Louise is a brave and humane writer, a breath of the freshest air." Renowned author Donal Ryan, winner of Guardian First Book Award and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for fiction. The year is 1982 and in Dublin, fourteen-year-old Jen is struggling to cope. She has lost her mother, and her father, Charlie, seems to have given up on life. Then Jen's aunt, Suzanne, convinces the pair to go on pilgrimage to a strange village in Communist-ruled Yugoslavia, where the Virgin Mary is allegedly appearing daily to six local children, in the hope that it will heal their broken lives. But what hope can be found for a man who has none left, and his daughter who is losing faith in him, in a place where the local police rule with an iron fist?