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  • Published: 19 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473578333
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

The Weight of Love




Maggie O'Farrell with bite: a powerful love story set between London & Dublin, from the much lauded Irish Times columnist who counts Roddy Doyle among her fans.

'This is heartache for grown ups. The Weight of Love pulls you in and does not let go' ANNE ENRIGHT

'Beautiful and painful, exquisitely written, shot through with nostalgia for our earlier selves' MARIAN KEYES

London, 1996. Robin and Ruth meet in the staff room of an East London school. Robin, desperate for a real connection, instantly falls in love. Ruth, recently bereaved and fragile, is tentative.

When Robin introduces Ruth to his childhood friend, Joseph, a tortured and talented artist, their attraction is instant. Powerless, Robin watches on as the girl he loves and his best friend begin a passionate and turbulent affair.

Dublin 2017. Robin and Ruth are married and have a son, Sid, who is about to emigrate to Berlin. Theirs is a marriage haunted by the ghost of Joseph and as the distance between them grows, Robin makes a choice that could have potentially devastating consequences.

The Weight of Love is a beautiful exploration of how we manage life when the notes and beats of our existence, so carefully arranged, begin to slip off the stave. An intimate and moving account of the intricacies of marriage and the myriad ways in which we can love and be loved.

'Delicate, powerful, hypnotic' DONAL RYAN

'Fannin's novel is already likely to be a serious contender for one of the books of the year' SUNDAY TIMES

  • Published: 19 March 2020
  • ISBN: 9781473578333
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

About the author

Hilary Fannin

HILARY FANNIN is an award-winning playwright and newspaper columnist. Born in Dublin, where she still lives, she was writer in association at the Abbey Theatre in its centenary year. Her plays, including Mackerel Sky, Doldrum Bay, Famished Castle and an adaptation of Racine’s Phaedra, have been performed in Ireland, London, Europe and North America. She writes a weekly column for the Irish Times and was awarded Irish Columnist of the Year in 2019. Her memoir, Hopscotch, was published to critical acclaim in 2015. The Weight of Love is her first novel.

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Praise for The Weight of Love

An absorbing, cleverly structured, yet very human novel. It is hard to accept that it is Hilary Fannin's first

Roddy Doyle

An exquisitely written, deeply moving novel about the agonies of love, intimacy, and the harm we inflict upon one another in the name of romance.

Louise O’Neill

Incredibly beautiful, aching; it feels like it’s being whispered to me. The story unfolds so naturally in prose at once delicate and powerful, hypnotic. Gorgeous.

Donal Ryan

Beautiful and painful, exquisitely written, shot through with nostalgia for our earlier selves.

Marian Keyes

This is heartache for grown ups. The Weight of Love pulls you in and does not let go.

Anne Enright

A tender, beautiful novel that sparkles with humour

Danielle McLaughlin

Fannin writes with acute insight on loss, grief, and the ways in which time fold in our lives ... We are not long into 2020, but Fannin's novel is already likely to be a serious contender for one of the books of the year

Sunday Times

A masterful dissection of romantic love ... This novel is still revealing new unexpected depths until the final page

Sunday Independent

It’s a gorgeous read; delicate, well crafted, full of clever insights into relationships, loss and the human condition of the calibre you might expect from Anne Enright.

Irish Times

Fannin proves the efficacy of fiction as a medium for truth - and in doing so, exceeds all expectations.

The Irish Times Ticket

Intimate and moving … It is all in there: family love, friendship and romantic love. Hilary looks at these universal themes with microscopic precision.

Irish Examiner

This beautifully written and intimate story is profoundly moving

Irish Sunday People

A startling debut

Must Read, Image Magazine

An utterly beautiful book

Michael Harding

A beautifully written account of a love triangle that feels so real I could have lived it myself

Kathleen MacMahon

Gorgeous, romantic, sad, melancholy, wise, amazing. I really recommend it ... One of the best books of the year

Seán Hewitt

Wise and beautifully bittersweet, The Weight of Love explores how we can be haunted by our own ghosts and the ghosts of others, by versions of our younger selves and the lives we failed to lead

Irish Independent

The Weight of Love left me with a feeling I so rarely get with fiction - a sort of drunkenness, an ease. I sank into it and when I got to the end, I wanted to turn it over and start again

Business Post

Wonderful ... A novel about lots of different forms of love ... Everyone should buy it

Miriam O'Callaghan, RTÉ Radio 1

Stunning ... perceptive, pitch-perfect.

Saga Magazine

Beautifully written ... profoundly moving.

Sunday Mirror