**THE NUMBER ONE IRISH BESTSELLER**

When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror.

An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. He gathers a team to set up an Escape Line.

But Hauptmann's net begins closing in and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmas, it's too late to turn back.

Based on a true story, My Father's House is a powerful thriller from a master of historical fiction. It is an unforgettable novel of love, sacrifice and what it means to be human in the most extreme circumstances.

'A spectacular, thrilling novel' Sunday Times

'So urgent, so incredibly alive... A searing and beautiful example of storytelling's infinite importance' Donal Ryan

'Impressive and pleasurable...evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality' Financial Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024

*The second book in the Rome Escape Line Trilogy, THE GHOSTS OF ROME, is available now.*

A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie. * Sunday Times *
O'Connor is on stellar form with this ensemble thriller ...while the story's inbuilt tension urges you on, it's the sheer vigour of O'Connor's beautifully turned phrases that really makes the book sing...an expert storyteller * Daily Mail *
A literary thriller of the highest order. The incarnation of O'Flaherty, the Irish Oskar Schindler, is sublime. What often elevates a writer is compassion, and O'Connor has it in spades... Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect. The plot twists keep on coming * Observer *
Breathtakingly good writing - O'Connor puts you right there, centre stage in the story and never lets you go
The novel's evocative scene-setting, its propulsive narration and its powerful depiction of bravery and unity in extremis, all make for an engrossing read. * Telegraph *
Thrilling... Based on true events, this tense, gripping narrative is rendered in beautifully evocative prose * Mail on Sunday *
Impressive and pleasurable...the diverse ventriloquism of O'Connor's novel evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality * Financial Times *
A tale worth re-telling, adorned as it is by the brilliants of O'Connor's impressionistic writing * The Times *
A powerful portrait of extraordinary courage * Irish Independent *
Precisely choreographed... We eagerly follow the characters through uncertainty and disappointment as well as high-stakes jeopardy. O'Connor is playing with the possibilities of multiple narrators, and thinking also about plurality, reliability and the historical record * Guardian, Book of the Day *

JOSEPH O’CONNOR was born in Dublin. His books include Cowboys and Indians, Inishowen, Star of the Sea (American Library Association Award, Irish Post Award for Fiction, France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, Prix Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year), Redemption Falls, Ghost Light (Dublin One City One Book Novel 2011), Shadowplay (Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, Costa Novel of the Year shortlist) and his Rome Escape Line Trilogy novels, My Father’s House, The Ghosts of Rome (Irish Book Awards Book of the Year) and The City of Echoes. His fiction has been translated into forty languages. He received the 2012 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature and in 2014 he was appointed Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

www.josephoconnorauthor.com