Catherine Airey: Literally Following Your Dreams, Writing in Ireland and Book Recs

Catherine Airey’s debut novel Confessions features on the “Books to Look Forward to in 2025” lists for the Financial Times and The Sunday Times. Catherine has been praised by The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Independent, Publishers Weekly and The Irish Times. The Guardian named her as one of 2025’s Best New Novelists. The Radio Times says she’s “bound to become a household name very soon.” Authors who love her work include Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeeping which was nominated for the Booker last year. She’s been interviewed for The Times Radio, The Bookseller, Country and Town House, and Radio 4’s prestigious Woman’s Hour. She was also recently in conversation with 2024 star Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits, for Waterstones in Deansgate. We talk about her journey to writing Confessions, favourite reads and the complexity of family stories. Get Confessions here or at your local bookshop! Find Catherine on Instagram @catherineairey. CONFESSIONS:It is late September in 2001 and the walls of New York are papered over with photos of the missing. Cora Brady’s father is there, the poster she made taped to columns and bridges. Her mother died long ago and now, orphaned on the cusp of adulthood, Cora is adrift and alone. Soon, a letter will arrive with the offer of a new life: far out on the ragged edge of Ireland, in the town where her parents were young, an estranged aunt can provide a home and fulfil a long-forgotten promise. There the story of Cora's family is hidden, and in her presence will begin to unspool…An essential, immersive debut from an astonishing new voice, Confessions traces the arc of three generations of women as they experience in their own time the irresistible gravity of the past: its love and tragedy, its mystery and redemption, and, in all things intended and accidental, the beauty and terrible shade of the things we do.