Haven

Book excerpt: A story of survival set in 600 AD Ireland; a parable of patriarchy, destruction and religion at sea, by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room. 'Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks with him, he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean? ‘Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book’ – Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry ‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater ‘Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written’ – The Times ‘Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect’ – Margaret Atwood via Twitter ‘Book of the Year’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times.