Liz Nugent & Louise O’Neill

Liz Nugent & Louise O’Neill

  • €20
  • The Maritime Hotel
  • 17/07/2026 - 8:30 pm

New novels by Liz Nugent and Louise O’Neill are always a cause for celebration and so 2026 is really spoiling us. And what better way to draw a close to this year’s festival than in the company of Liz and Louise as they discuss their new novels, The Truth About Ruby Cooper and Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone?

Liz Nugent’s new novel is The Truth About Ruby Cooper. If my sister hadn’t been beautiful, none of it would have happened. Ruby Cooper and her sister, Erin, live an idyllic life in their close-knit church community in Boston. But when Ruby is sixteen, she is involved in an incident that causes her family’s world to implode. Across decades, the fallout leaves a wake of destruction behind Ruby in Dublin and Erin in Boston. Not that Ruby wants to think about the past. But it can’t stay a secret forever.

 

Whatever Happened to Madeline Stone? is the latest novel by Louise O’Neill. In 2002 twin sisters Madeline and Chelsea Stone are joint stars of the AtomicKids sitcom Double Trouble, but everyone knows it’s Maddie who shines most brightly. Until Chelsea beats her sister out for the role of a lifetime and is catapulted into the spotlight. And just as Chelsea’s star reaches impossible new heights, Maddie disappears. In 2025 we find out that Chelsea Stone retired from acting after her sister’s disappearance – but living life under the radar is easier said than done when you’re the most famous woman of your generation. When a storage locker is found containing heart-breaking truths about the year Maddie went missing, Chelsea feels a flicker of hope for the first time in twenty years. This is her chance to discover what really happened to her twin, but to follow the trail she’ll have to face the past and step back into the spotlight…