Two Bray coach houses have been converted into a bright and spacious family home
Two Bray coach houses have been converted into a bright and spacious family home

Megan Burns

Vogue Williams’ new ‘chic Barbie’ kitchen and the pastel / wallpaper combos she’s loving
Vogue Williams’ new ‘chic Barbie’ kitchen and the pastel / wallpaper combos she’s loving

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WIN a full MasterChef Professional Stainless Steel Cookware Set
WIN a full MasterChef Professional Stainless Steel Cookware Set

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Social Pictures: Boodles celebrates its new partnership with Punchestown Festival
Social Pictures: Boodles celebrates its new partnership with Punchestown Festival

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It may appear tiny from the front, but this Ballsbridge cottage on the market for €750,000 is surprisingly spacious
It may appear tiny from the front, but this Ballsbridge cottage on the market for...

Megan Burns

This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000
This picturesque West Cork home with separate basement apartment is on the market for €695,000

Sarah Finnan

‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a job’
‘The Easter holidays are a fresh kind of hell when you have kids and a...

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Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset
Annutri co-founder and award-winning businesswoman Anita Donoghue on the power of a positive mindset

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This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views
This Clontarf home was reconfigured to streamline the layout and maximise its views

Megan Burns

6 classic movies worth watching over Easter
6 classic movies worth watching over Easter

Jennifer McShane

Need some beach read inspiration? Here are 10 titles team IMAGE are reading this summer

Need some beach read inspiration? Here are 10 titles team IMAGE are reading this summer


by Sarah Gill
03rd Jun 2023

Whether you’ve got a holiday coming up with lots of poolside reading time, or plan on spending the weekend browsing your local library, here are some titles to look out for this summer.

Lauren Heskin, Editor, IMAGE Magazine

I just consumed Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses over the weekend, which was recently shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction – winner to be announced on June 14th! It centres on the north in the 1970s, where Cushla, a 23-year-old woman, is working in her brother’s Co Down pub and as a teacher in the Catholic primary school by day, tending to her binge-drinking mother by night. When she begins an affair with Michael, a married, Protestant barrister, their become intertwined with the sectarian violence around them. This might be old news as it came out in 2022 to much applause but I loved it!

Anne Enright had a book coming out in August, The Wren, The Wren, that looks at the complexion lifespan of a mother-daughter relationship. A rich and transcendent topic that enright had long been unafraid to dive into, this time taking centre stage. If Anne enright wrote a book of ingredient lists and their nutritional value I would read it.

I’m also determined to go back to The Swans, a tome that suits on my side table, acting as a water glad coaster most of the time. Maybe this time I’ll make it through.

Sarah Finnan, Deputy Digital Editor

There are more books on my summer read list than I realistically have time to get through in three months, but I just finished Bella Mackie’s How To Kill Your Family and it was a great pool-side companion. A darkly humorous debut novel that follows a cunning antihero as she gets her revenge, it’s not a graphic how-to but a fictional retelling of how Grace Bernard ended up in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. It took me a while to get into it but once you’re hooked, you won’t want to put it down.

Next up is Naoise Dolan’s The Happy Couple (if I ever manage to finish Prince Harry’s Spare…)

Shayna Sappington, Senior Branded Content Writer, IMAGE.ie

I recently started devouring Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson and haven’t been able to put it down. Flitting back and forth between the present day – when a mom leaves her estranged children a traditional Caribbean black cake and a voice recording – and a decades-old murder that involves a young girl on ‘the islands’, everything they thought they knew about their family’s past is shattered.

If you’re looking for an intriguing summer read, I’d recommend the feminist sci-fi novel The Power by Naomi Alderman, which was just released as a TV series on Amazon Prime this year, or for a lighter read, Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah is a beautiful portrayal of female friendship and a different type of love story that I think is even more impactful than romance. It’s also been made into a two-season series on Netflix.

In terms of what I’m looking forward to, Irish crime author Catherine Ryan Howard is releasing her next book, The Trap, in August and I’m counting down the days. In an unsettling mystery inspired by a series of still-unsolved disappearances in Ireland in the 90s, one young woman risks everything to catch a faceless killer. I’m a devoted fan so I’ve no doubt this will be an intriguing page-turner.

Sarah Gill, Staff Writer

I won’t stop shouting about just how good Jia Tolentino’s debut essay collection, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, is. Themes and topics covered move between internet culture, contemporary feminism, and how capitalism is irreversibly ruining our lives, but in a cohesive, easy-to-digest, fun way. It’s blown my tiny mind several times, so when I’m reading this on the beach, getting tan lines on my furrowed brow, I often have to put it down and step away for a little while to digest it all and sigh at the state of the world. As you do!

Next up on my to-be-read list is Sophie White’s My Hot Friend. It’s described as a funny and heartfelt story of female friendship, so I was instantly intrigued. The story follows three women — one podcast host who’s on the top of the world, one new mum struggling with loneliness, and one woman whose WhatsApp inbox has been ominously quiet — as they navigate the knotty, joyful and occasionally toxic swamp that is female friendship. But how will they each decide which friendships to fight for, and which to let go forever?

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