The Rachel Incident

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love 'I loved it' COCO MELLORS 'If you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did' GABRIELLE ZEVIN 'Funny, nostalgic, sexy' MONICA HEISEY 'Hilarious, wise and wonderfully written' GRAHAM NORTON 'Easily 13/10 . . . Funny, lovely, romantic' MARIAN KEYES 'I loved it ... had me reading with my hand over my heart' TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER ____________________________________________________________________________ Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It's simple. It's complicated. It's about love, sex and friendship. It's definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it's the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up. ____________________________________________________________________________ Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and a TikTok Book Award - Book of the Year (UK & Ireland) 'Reading it is like hearing your funniest, sexiest friend tell you the best story they know' KATHERINE RUNDELL 'Sharply witty, warm-hearted and wise' GUARDIAN ' O'Donoghue captures all the intensity of messy young love' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A book full of love, and it is extremely easy to love reading it' VOGUE 'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST The Rachel Incident was a #2 bestseller in Ireland in June 2023

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love 'I loved it' COCO MELLORS 'If you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did' GABRIELLE ZEVIN 'Funny, nostalgic, sexy' MONICA HEISEY 'Hilarious, wise and wonderfully written' GRAHAM NORTON 'Easily 13/10 . . . Funny, lovely, romantic' MARIAN KEYES 'I loved it ... had me reading with my hand over my heart' TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER ____________________________________________________________________________ Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It's simple. It's complicated. It's about love, sex and friendship. It's definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it's the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up. ____________________________________________________________________________ Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and a TikTok Book Award - Book of the Year (UK & Ireland) 'Reading it is like hearing your funniest, sexiest friend tell you the best story they know' KATHERINE RUNDELL 'Sharply witty, warm-hearted and wise' GUARDIAN ' O'Donoghue captures all the intensity of messy young love' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A book full of love, and it is extremely easy to love reading it' VOGUE 'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST The Rachel Incident was a #2 bestseller in Ireland in June 2023

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - A USA TODAY BESTSELLER - A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three - "O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications." -- People "If you've ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you've ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start...if you've ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time...In short, if you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did." --Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it's love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred's glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love 'I loved it' COCO MELLORS 'If you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did' GABRIELLE ZEVIN 'Funny, nostalgic, sexy' MONICA HEISEY 'Hilarious, wise and wonderfully written' GRAHAM NORTON 'Easily 13/10 . . . Funny, lovely, romantic' MARIAN KEYES 'I loved it ... had me reading with my hand over my heart' TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER ____________________________________________________________________________ Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It's simple. It's complicated. It's about love, sex and friendship. It's definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it's the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up. ____________________________________________________________________________ Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and a TikTok Book Award - Book of the Year (UK & Ireland) 'Reading it is like hearing your funniest, sexiest friend tell you the best story they know' KATHERINE RUNDELL 'Sharply witty, warm-hearted and wise' GUARDIAN ' O'Donoghue captures all the intensity of messy young love' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A book full of love, and it is extremely easy to love reading it' VOGUE 'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST The Rachel Incident was a #2 bestseller in Ireland in June 2023

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love 'I loved it' COCO MELLORS 'If you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did' GABRIELLE ZEVIN 'Funny, nostalgic, sexy' MONICA HEISEY 'Hilarious, wise and wonderfully written' GRAHAM NORTON 'Easily 13/10 . . . Funny, lovely, romantic' MARIAN KEYES 'I loved it ... had me reading with my hand over my heart' TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER ____________________________________________________________________________ Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It's simple. It's complicated. It's about love, sex and friendship. It's definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it's the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up. ____________________________________________________________________________ Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and a TikTok Book Award - Book of the Year (UK & Ireland) 'Reading it is like hearing your funniest, sexiest friend tell you the best story they know' KATHERINE RUNDELL 'Sharply witty, warm-hearted and wise' GUARDIAN ' O'Donoghue captures all the intensity of messy young love' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A book full of love, and it is extremely easy to love reading it' VOGUE 'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST The Rachel Incident was a #2 bestseller in Ireland in June 2023

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - A USA TODAY BESTSELLER - A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three - "O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications." -- People "If you've ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you've ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start...if you've ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time...In short, if you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did." --Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it's love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred's glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - A USA TODAY BESTSELLER - A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three - "O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications." -- People "If you've ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you've ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start...if you've ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time...In short, if you've ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did." --Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it's love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred's glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.