By Stephanie Monahan

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day and celebrating all things Irish, we’ve pulled together a list of our favorite reads from Irish authors. Enjoy!

In the Woods by Tana French

The first in the Dublin Murder Squad literary mystery series, In the Woods tells the story of haunted detective Rob and his newest case, the disappearance and murder of a 12-year-old Dublin girl. The case might be mundane if not for the fact that 20 years ago, Rob was the victim of a similar crime ~ the only one of his friends left alive after a terrorizing incident in the woods. Rob has only fleeting memories of what happened to him, but now he’s forced to return to the scene of the crime in order to solve it.

PS I Love You by Cecilia Ahern

You might know the story from the movie of the same name, which was based on the book. Thirty-year-old Holly loses her husband, Gerry, to a brain tumor. Not long after, a letter from Gerry arrives in the mail. There are 10 letters in all ~ one a month for the next 10 months, each with a directive from Gerry meant to help Holly move on with her life. The premise might sound sappy, but the book mostly stays away from sentimentality. The interactions with Holly and her family, who are all trying to help her in their own way, are funny and realistic. Her relationship with her know-it-all brother, Richard, is especially entertaining ~ and surprising.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly

It’s a familiar plot in many fantasy books and folklore tales: A little boy loses his mother. His father remarries a woman who, though not terrible, fails in the most important way ~ she’s not his mother. The boy’s stepmother has a baby who now takes center stage in his father’s life. What’s different here, though, is that the boy, David, starts to have seizure-like fits. His books begin talking to him. He’s followed around by a strange creature he dubs “The Crooked Man.” Then, he hears his mother whispering to him from the woods behind his house, asking David to save her. To this end, David disappears through a tree in his backyard and is transported into another world. He meets wolf-human hybrids, a disgraced soldier and a Snow White who’s very different from the fairy-tale version. As David attempts to save his mother, he’s tested at every turn. The ending is perfect ~ one of the best I’ve ever read.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

I read this memoir when it was first published in 1999, and in years since, it’s become a classic. McCourt recalls his childhood as a boy born in Brooklyn to Irish parents. It wasn’t easy ~ his family was extremely poor and his father was an alcoholic ~ but McCourt doesn’t wallow in the bad times. Instead, he manages to find humor even in the darkest moments, and that’s what makes the book so uplifting and so memorable. Even if you didn’t grow up in the same circumstances, the book will make you feel like a kid again.