From the winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction and the Irish Book of the Year... Jack is just twelve years old when he rushes down the hill after his mother''s car on his bike, desperate to reach her before she reaches the lake. What happens next cannot be undone. Jack''s life changes just at the moment he is entering those dizzying years when he will transition from boy to man; when nothing makes sense at the best of times. Yet Jack is not, is never alone. Enveloped as he is by his extended family - his ferociously loving Nana; Grandad, given to sudden bursts of rage; his earthy uncles Haulie and Theo who want to show him what it means to be a man, and irascible cousin JJ who resents him. Then there is beautiful aunt Rose, whose mere presence ignites ever atom in his changing body. But how can a boy with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, understand the person he is becoming? Without his mother to ground him on the earth, will he spin off into the stars?

Autorentext

Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize twice. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won the Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Orwell Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

Klappentext

**Tender, moving, full of warmth, crackling with humour and the love of family, the exquisite new novel from the author of HEART BE AT PEACE.

A RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB BOOK**

'Beautiful, hilarious and completely gripping**'** Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Handmade God

**'**I loved it from the first word to the last' Kit de Waal, author of The Best of Everything

'A beautiful book. And wise. And tender. And funny' Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

'Made me laugh and cry in equal measure' Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things

Something terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.

His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can't seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn't feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack's dad when he gets out of the hospital.

Still, there's work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles' garage; there's his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there's JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.

But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king?

Timeless and elegiac, Where are the Kings is a beautifully wrought novel for fans of Colm Tóibín, Samantha Harvey and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain.

'A book that will break your heart and stitch it back together again' Irish Independent

'Donal Ryan conjures up characters so solid, so complete and authentic, it immediately feels as though you have known them for your entire life' JOANNA CANNON, author of An Unlikely Visitor

'Tender, funny, mysterious and hopeful... a flawless gem' M L Stedman, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Far-flung Life and The Light Between Oceans

'Warm, irreverent and desperately humane.' *Jan Carson, author of Few & Far Between

**'*****So arresting, so captivating...**a book that makes you look at the world differently, while at the same time cranking open your heart and letting the whole world pour in.' *Annie Macmanus

• Number One bestseller, Irish Times, August 2026*