Join Liam Murray Bell for a discussion about his debut novel, So It Is, the Festival Book for the 2013 Surrey New Writers Festival. Saturday, March 16^th, Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford, 12.45-1.45pm. £3/£5

Download the Book Group Reading Guide Here: 

So It Is

Liam Murray Bell

Spanning the decades that saw Northern Ireland move from brutal conflict to uncertain peace in the 1990s, this powerful new take on the literature of the Troubles is both a political coming-of-age novel and a fast-paced literary thriller.

Aoife, a young girl growing up in 1980s Belfast, finds herself the last line of defence between the violence and her family. While her mother sinks deeper into a medicated stupor, and her father leaves the family for the comforts of the local bars, Aoife cares for her brother Damien, trying to keep him out of harm’s way, while all around her friends and neighbours are swept up in the conflict.

Meanwhile Cassie, a Republican paramilitary and honeytrap, lures and seduces her victims, inflicting lasting damage. But her infamous tactics have their repercussions, and before long her past catches up with her.

So It Is is an unflinching and suspenseful debut that reflects the factions and fractures of the Troubles from a new perspective, culminating in a breathless sequence in which the choice between violence and personal morality becomes shockingly acute.

Shades of Brian Moore's Lies of Silence abound in this no-holds-barred debut about an Irish republican paramilitary who becomes first hunter, then hunted...Bell resists clichés and stretches the tension out to a bitterly abrupt end in which there are no winners.

Guardian