Corvus acquires The Glass House

Sarah Hodgson, Publishing Director of Atlantic Books’ Corvus imprint, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to house author Rachel Donohue’s The Glass House from Sara O’Keeffe at Andrew Nurnberg Associates. The Glass House will be published in trade paperback in February 2025.

Rachel Donohue’s debut novel, The Temple House Vanishing, was an Irish Times bestseller and named one of the best thrillers of 2021 by The New York Times. In 2017, she won the prestigious Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award for her short fiction which has been published in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, RTE on-line, The Honest Ulsterman and The Cormorant journals.

Her new novel – The Glass House – is a darkly compelling story of two sisters haunted by the absence of a long-dead father and the terrible secrets he kept.

In 1963, Galway on the west coast of Ireland is home to Richard Acklehurst, a charismatic philosopher celebrated as a genius by his acolytes and condemned as a Nazi sympathizer by others. In late December, like every year, his household is preparing for a glittering New Year’s Eve party at his stark and isolated modernist mansion, known to everybody as the Glass House – but this year, the party will end with his mysterious death.

On the eve of the new millennium, Acklehurst’s remains are defiled in the country graveyard where they have lain undisturbed for over thirty years, forcing his two daughters, Aisling and Stella – teenagers at the time of their father’s death – to return to their childhood home. There, they must finally confront a past that will not remain buried and the complex and dark dynamic at the heart of their family.

Moving from the West of Ireland to Dublin, London, Florence and back, The Glass House is a captivating tale of love, regret and vengeance.

Rachel Donohue says,

‘I wanted to create a rich, dark world centred on two sisters coming of age in 1960s Ireland in the long shadow of an imperious and controversial father figure. With a secret at its heart, I hope readers can escape into this story of love, regret and revenge.’

Sarah Hodgson says,

‘I’m delighted to have a new novel from the hugely talented Rachel Donohue on the Corvus list. The Glass House is a powerfully written tale that explores the dark heart of a family with compassion and tenderness. I hope that readers will fall in love with Aisling and Stella, two very different sisters, as I have.’