The Ballad of Ronan McCoy

The instant bestseller 'A painfully optimistic book that does the favour of making you laugh as it breaks your heart' 'A tender, elegant novel about the beauty and importance of friendship…One of the most moving books I’ve read in some time' *** Brendan's best friend, his only friend, is Ronan McCoy. He knows things about Brendan that no one else does: about his job washing the cars at Feeney’s Funeral Home, about the loneliness he sometimes feels even when surrounded by hundreds of others at school. But Brendan never told Ronan about the dark feeling that sits at the bottom of his stomach, the feeling that tells him something bad is coming. It never comes when Ronan's around. Ronan is smart and sporty and popular, totally comfortable in his own skin: all the things that Brendan himself isn't. But Ronan always makes him feel like a good friend, a good person, a Brendan. Standing at the school gates on the first day of term, the dark feeling begins to form in Brendan's stomach. And when Ronan doesn’t turn up, Brendan learns that something terrible happened to his best friend over the summer and he'll never be the same again. Over the course of the final year of school, Brendan will have to learn to navigate the new shape of their friendship and find a place for himself in the world without Ronan to protect him. The Ballad of Ronan McCoy ***** ‘An empathetic and thoughtful debut’ ‘Soaring, lyrical and heart-breaking’ ‘A fresh and authentic voice is found in this impressive and original debut about grief, loss and the enduring power of love’ ‘A gripping, clear-eyed, moving look at loss and love in a country town in a post-Troubles Northern Ireland’