From one of Ireland's most talented journalists, an extraordinary fiction debut, compelling, colourful and romantic. Kathleen is a 49-year-old travel writer, an Irishwoman based in London who has not been back to Ireland since she was twenty. Her home is her office, her family and friends a few close colleagues. She has not experienced passion since she was young. When, over the course of a few weeks, the props of her life fall away one after another, it is to passion that she turns - not in her own life, but in the fragmentary account of a scandalous affair in 19th century rural Ireland, between the wife of a big Anglo-Irish landlord, and her servant. And so Kathleen is drawn back to Ireland, to see whether she can find out more...

Forty-nine-year old Kathleen is an Irish travel writer based in London who has not been back to Ireland since she was 20. Her home is her office and she has not experienced passion for many years. But when the props of Kathleen's life fall away one after the other she turns to a passion not in her own life but in a scandalous affair in 19th century rural Ireland to where she returns and discovers how powerful the human heart is.

Nuala O'Faolain lives in Dublin. ARE YOU SOMEBODY?, her autobiographical memoir, was published to huge success and critical acclaim in America and Ireland. This is her first novel.