Where are the Kings

Name: Where are the Kings
Price: 34.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9780857529589

Donal Ryan

$34.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Doubleday
13 August 2026

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

From the multiple award-winning, No 1 bestselling Donal Ryan, an unforgettable, funny, intensely moving novel about a young boy coming of age after the loss of his mother.

From the winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction and the Irish Book of the Year...

Jack is just twelve years old when he rushes down the hill after his mother's car on his bike, desperate to reach her before she reaches the lake.

What happens next cannot be undone. Jack's life changes just at the moment he is entering those dizzying years when he will transition from boy to man; when nothing makes sense at the best of times.

Yet Jack is not alone. Enveloped as he is by his extended family - his ferociously loving Nana; Grandad, given to sudden bursts of rage; his earthy uncles Haulie and Theo who want to show him what it means to be a man, and the irascible JJ who resents him deeply. Then there is beautiful aunt Rose, whose mere presence ignites every atom in his changing body.

But how can a boy with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, understand the person he is becoming? Without his mother to ground him on the earth, will he spin off into the stars?

By: Donal Ryan
Imprint: Doubleday
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 222mm, Width: 138mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 400g
ISBN: 9780857529589
ISBN 10: 0857529587
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 13 August 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize twice. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won the Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Orwell Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.