Aingeala Flannery joined Maria on The Saturday Café to tell all about her debut novel 'The Amusements' which is set in Tramore.

The story follows the Grant and Swaine families along with their neighbours over 30 years. The main focus is on the friendship between Helen Grant and Stella Swaine.

The book features a variety of topics such as friendship and how it can evolve, social classes and how they can affect talent and ambition, father-daughter relationships and the absence of a positive male figure, and what it's like to live a small-town life.

Aingeala had been writing a different novel but got a bit stuck with it and began to write a short story about a small girl named Helen Grant. It went on to win a Harper's Bazaar award.

She then felt she couldn't go back to the novel she was originally writing because she found herself questioning what happens next with Helen, so she wrote 'The Amusements.'

About Aingeala

Aingeala was born in Waterford and lived her until she was eight. She then moved to Piltown until she was 11, after which she moved to Dublin.

She worked in radio for over 16 years and has experience writing for national newspapers too.

She gave up her radio role as she felt she wasn't giving herself time to write her book.

Aingeala is currently working on a book that is separate to this one. She says she is into it but at the moment she is focussing on The Amusements, as it was only released recently.

She also has some short stories being written in the background to "keep her juices flowing."

Aingeala and Maria spoke about reading her book reviews and how she responds to them. Does she take negative ones personally? Or does she take them on board and try to improve?

Click the link in this podcast to listen to the full conversation and find out.

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