The Irish Goodbye: A Novel

📚 Why We Recommend It

Heather Aimee O’Neill’s debut unfolds with the slow-burn inevitability of a holiday you can’t avoid and the tenderness of a confession you’ve rehearsed for years, bringing three adult Ryan sisters back to their childhood home on the East End of Long Island for Thanksgiving, where the ritual comforts of food and family collide with the long shadow of a fatal accident on their brother Topher’s boat and the arrival of a guest from the past, until secrets and loyalties are tested in ways that feel at once intimate and epic.  Written by a poet and teacher whose ear for cadence meets a storyteller’s instinct for momentum, the novel threads Catholic guilt, sisterly rivalry, and the stubborn ache of inherited grief into scenes that read with cinematic clarity while retaining the warmth and messiness of real life, creating a narrative that invites readers to ask not only what these women owe one another but also what forgiveness might look like when shared at a single table.  Chosen as the October 2025 Read with Jenna pick and celebrated as a national bestseller, it arrives with the rare combination of book-club electricity and literary grace, making it an ideal choice for readers who crave character-driven drama that wrestles honestly with love, regret, faith, and the fragile possibility of starting over.