Snowflake

Debbie is eighteen and has grown up on her family's dairy farm, forty minutes from Dublin. She lives with her mother, Maeve, who stays in bed for days at a time, says she has no idea who Debbie's father is, and treats her dreams as prophecies.

Maeve's brother Billy lives in a caravan behind the house. He drinks too much and spends his time online posing as dead writers. The family has its oddities, but the love between them is never in question.

Debbie wins a place at Trinity College Dublin and travels in a few days a week. Away from home for the first time, she finds her fellow students disappointing and the city fast and anonymous. The farm comforts her, yet she keeps drifting away from it.

Then strange dreams of her own return, and she fears she is heading for her mother's fate. A tragic accident upsets the balance of the household, and Debbie's next steps may no longer be up to her. The novel is a coming-of-age story set in the present day, moving between depression and joy.