The Ghosts Of Rome
Published on 29. January 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-5299-6702-9 (ISBN)
Description
**WINNER OF IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 ** THE NUMBER ONE IRISH BESTSELLER**
'As thrilling, beautiful and sensational a novel as you'll read this year or any year' Sunday Times
February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome.
Inside the war-torn city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini works for the band of Escape Line activists known as 'the Choir'. Her mission is to smuggle Allied soldiers to safety, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.
During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.
Meanwhile, Hauptmann's attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him - one where the consequences could be lethal.
'A superb testament to humankind's bravery and resilience...moving and immersive' Guardian, Books of the Year
'Tremendous and terrifying' Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times Books of the Year
'A stellar piece of storytelling' Daily Mail
'Not just a wartime thriller, but a meditation on how we remember, how we resist and how, even in the darkest times, humanity endures' New York Times
'As thrilling, beautiful and sensational a novel as you'll read this year or any year' Sunday Times
February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome.
Inside the war-torn city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini works for the band of Escape Line activists known as 'the Choir'. Her mission is to smuggle Allied soldiers to safety, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.
During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.
Meanwhile, Hauptmann's attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him - one where the consequences could be lethal.
'A superb testament to humankind's bravery and resilience...moving and immersive' Guardian, Books of the Year
'Tremendous and terrifying' Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times Books of the Year
'A stellar piece of storytelling' Daily Mail
'Not just a wartime thriller, but a meditation on how we remember, how we resist and how, even in the darkest times, humanity endures' New York Times
Reviews / Votes
A superb testament to humankind's bravery and resilience...moving and immersive * Guardian, Books of the Year * Tremendous and terrifying -- Fintan O'Toole * Irish Times Books of the Year * The tension doesn't slack an inch... It is haunting, sensuous and immaculately constructed - without sacrificing any thrills * Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2025* * The Ghosts of Rome is both a tribute to the imagination and courage of his remarkable team [of The Escape Line] and a riveting thriller * Times Literary Supplement * Blazes with imaginative flair and narrative energy... packed with sensuously evoked reminders of Rome's rich past...haunted and haunting * Sunday Times * There is no finer writer of historical fiction than Joseph O'Connor. . . Beautifully written, warm and witty, this story of a terrorised city is a must-read. Thrilling, terrifying and entertaining in equal measure. -- Liz Nugent, Number One Bestselling author of STRANGE SALLY DIAMOND [A] vivid and moving story, with O'Connor seamlessly combining real characters with imagined ones * Guardian * As thrilling, beautiful and sensational a novel as you'll read this or any year -- Donal Ryan * Sunday Times * Digs ever deeper into the lives of the everyday heroes of a war-ravaged city, unearthing stories of remarkable courage and ingenuity that glitter from the pages of this tense, polyphonic narrative -- Sarah Gilmartin A stellar piece of storytelling. O'Connor brilliantly captures the sense of the city and its inhabitants in peril * Daily Mail *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
270 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-6702-9 (9781529967029)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2025
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Joseph O'Connor's fiction has been published in forty languages. His twenty books include eleven novels, among them the million-selling Star of the Sea, Ghost Light, Shadowplay, My Father's House, a Washington Post Book of the Year, and The Ghosts of Rome. His work has been shortlisted for the LA Times Book Award, twice for the Whitbread/Costa and twice for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and has won the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, France's Prix Millepages, Italy's Premio Acerbi and Premio Napoli, an American Library Association Award, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Hennessy Writer of the Year and Hall of Fame Awards, the Eason/An Post Novel of the Year Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year. He is Frank McCourt Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick
www.josephoconnorauthor.com
www.josephoconnorauthor.com