'A dazzling modern mythology of our oldest stories, richly imagined by the very best of Irish writers' DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA, author of A Ghost in the Throat

'Dark, lyrical and exhilarating, these stories feel both timeless and urgently modern' LOUISE O'NEILL, author of Idol

Featuring new and original stories from:

Jane Casey Sunday Times bestselling author of Cruel Acts | Naoise Dolan Sunday Times bestselling author of Exciting Times | Salma El-Wardany Critically acclaimed author of These Impossible Things | Wendy Erskine Gordon Burn Prize-longlisted author of The Benefactors | Nikita Gill Sunday Times bestselling author of Hekate | Anne Griffin Irish Times bestselling author of Listening Still | Sarah Maria Griffin Award-winning author of Spare and Found Parts | Jess Kidd International award-winning author of Things in Jars | Megan Nolan Sunday Times bestselling author of Acts of Desperation | Sheila O'Flanagan Sunday Times bestselling author of The Honeymoon Affair

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In this spellbinding anthology, Ireland's most electrifying female writers breathe new life into ancient Irish myths, reclaiming the stories of women who have too long stood in the shadows of warriors and kings.

Editor and journalist Ailbhe Malone was raised on these legends - but the women, always cast as mothers, warriors or witches, were never given the lead. And so, Banshee was born: not just a retelling but a radical reclamation.

Banshee transports you to treacherous landscapes and salt-crashing seas, generational curses and mystical islands. Here you'll find unruly mothers, rule-breaking queens, and women outrunning their destiny - stories pulsing with desire, danger and defiance.

This is a celebration of womanhood - and an homage to the ancient stories that still shape us.

Ailbhe Malone is Senior Editor at the Strategist (New York Magazine). She has also worked for the Guardian, Irish Times, Wired and Nylon (US). Educated at Trinity College Dublin, Ailbhe spent summers in the west of Ireland, surrounded by the foundations of legends featured in this collection. From learning about the salmon of knowledge from a seanchaí to reading Sinéad de Valera's Irish Fairy Tales under the covers at night, she gobbled up every variant of folktale she could find. Yet the women of these legends are rarely the protagonists, even in the stories named after them. Banshee asks: why not let the women lead?