Available Formats
Hardback, Large Print Edition
Published: 1st August 2025
Paperback, Main
Published: 4th July 2023
Paperback, Export - Airside ed
Published: 17th May 2022
These Days
By (Author) Lucy Caldwell
Thorndike Press
Thorndike Press
1st August 2025
Large Print Edition
United States
Fiction
Narrative theme: Coming of age
Hardback
Adroit, precise storytelling, atmospheric and satisfying; These Days is a novel of real substance. Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall
WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2023
One of Lit Hubs and Zibby Owenss Most Anticipated Books of 2025 One of The Washington Post's 10 Noteworthy Books of April 2025
An exquisitely lyrical (Louise Kennedy) WWII novel from a singular Irish writer following two sisters over the course of four nights as they reckon with their futures in crumbling Belfast.
April 1941: Belfast has escaped the worst of the Second World Warso far. Over the next two months, it will be so destroyed from above that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished. Many wont make it through, and those who do will be forever changed.
Living amid the rubble are sisters Emma and Audrey. One is engaged to be married; the other is in a secret relationship with another woman. As the bombs fall, and tomorrow feels further and further away, these young women must grapple with the cultural expectations standing firm around them, and try to seize control of their destinies. After all, Emma thinks, if one is to survive, one must survive for something.
Featuring the voices of the communityfrom their mother to the wee girl down the roadThese Days is a timeless and poignant tale of interrupted girlhood, life under duress, and the struggle to stay true to ourselves. Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Lucy Caldwells portrait of the Belfast Blitz is to be cherished.