Sarah Gilmartin

Author: Sarah Gilmartin

Genres: Literary Fiction

Dylan, Stevie and Ben have been inseparable since their days at Trinity, when everything seemed possible.

A glance between them can still conjure their younger selves: dancing beneath pulsing lights, the sharp taste of salt after swims in Dublin Bay.

Two decades on, life feels smaller. Dylan, once a rugby star, is stranded on the sofa, cared for by his wife Rachel. Across town, Stevie and Ben's relationship has settled into weary routine.

Then, after countless auditions, Ben lands a role in Pinter's Betrayal. As rehearsals unfold, the play's shifting allegiances seep into reality, reviving old jealousies and awakening sudden longings, as each must reckon with how far they're willing to go in pursuit of desire.

Wry, sexy and deftly observed, Little Vanities is a novel about the dangerous thrill of stepping outside the roles we've been given - and the distance between the lives we imagine and the ones we live.

Featured in Image 26 books to look forward to in 2026, The Irish Times The best fiction of 2026 to look forward to and Summer reading hitlist, The Journal 16 Irish books to watch out for in 2026, The Times‍ as well as podcasts ‍RTE One, Life in Pages, and A Pair of Bookends.

“Gilmartin is a natural writer: she gives us terrific, complex characters and strong themes, in a prose that is fluent and charged with insight.”
- Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren

“A really wonderful storyteller.”
- Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea

“Gilmartin has a forensic eye for the little moments and mumbled asides. . . She writes sharply and cleanly but always with a degree of compassion.”
- Jan Carson, author of The Raptures

“Sarah Gilmartin writes so well about failure and disappointment, the curdling of youthful optimism. And her skills as a playwright allow her set pieces to unfold as if on stage with electrifying effect — there are dramas within dramas here and the unravelling is exhilarating when it comes”
- Clare Chambers

“Sarah Gilmartin writes about relationships with great precision and insight. Her subject is agency - how ineptly we use it when we're young, how imperceptibly we lose it as youth recedes. Her characters find themselves trapped by their life choices and reckoning with the cost of overturning them. This is a scrupulous and elegant novel about the realities of adulthood”
- Kathleen MacMahon

“In Little Vanities […], dramatic turning points are not in short supply: the novel is bookended by a fraught game of poker and a catastrophic children’s birthday party.”
- Miriam Balanescu, Financial Times

“From the very first page, we get friendship, lies, recrimination, resentment, jealousy, betrayal and sex, bidden and forbidden. In other words, all the good stuff. […] In all three of her novels, Gilmartin excels at complex and authentic characters.”
- Edel Coffey, The Irish Times

“It’s a midlife-crisis novel, full of sharp wit and sharper wisdom”
- Martin Doyle, The Irish Times

“Its appeal is sharp social observation, intimate betrayals and the uneasy pleasure of watching familiar lives crack open.”
- Sarah Gill, Image

“A sharply told tale of love, desire and the cost of what might have been.”
- Catherine Jarvie, Marie Claire

Author: Sarah Gilmartin

Genres: Literary Fiction

When Hannah learns that star chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she’s thrown back to her summer waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant.

A glamorous world of talent and testosterone, where attention from Daniel morphed into something darker…

Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel is faced with the reality of the courtroom. His wife Julie is hiding from paparazzi lenses behind the bedroom curtains.

Surrounded by the wreckage of the past, their three voices reveal a story of power, complicity and the courage that it takes to face the truth.

“The exhausting and exhilarating life of a high-end restaurant is beautifully recreated in this masterful novel . . . deeply satisfying . . . A writer correctly confident in her recipe.”
- Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing

“In clean, clinical prose, Gilmartin lays bare both the power imbalances generated in a hothouse, hierarchical environment, and the schism between women’s rights in the wake of MeToo and a country still in thrall to the old patriarchal order.”
- The Daily Mail

“Service is gripping, fearless and raw. I could not put it down.”
- Una Mannion

“Absolutely compelling. Every page fizzes with energy and observation. Gilmartin combines effortless, elegant writing with a momentum that propels you onwards, barely pausing until you've reached the end. A masterful novel.”
- Rebecca Wait

“A hugely gripping literary page-turner. Sharp, visceral and shocking.”
- Claire Powell

“Hooked by Daniel Costello's predatory charms, and then by a thirst for natural justice, I raced through Service. Sarah Gilmartin is a smart, stylish and darkly funny writer.”
- Aingeala Flannery

“A brilliantly observed immersive novel which tells the 'me too' story from every angle.”
- Amber Medland, author of Wild Pets

“Sarah Gilmartin's second novel is consummately done. The prose is clean, crisp, perfectly-filleted; the pace and tension perfectly controlled, to the very last page. Superb.”
- Lucy Caldwell

“I love the high-octane setting of this novel, with its vivid portrayal of the heavy drinking, hard-living lifestyle of the staff who work in a celebrated restaurant. The story is skilfully told, teasing out the layers of truth and denial that give texture to a toxic history. In teasing out the strands of her narrative, Sarah Gilmartin gets it absolutely right.”
- Kathleen MacMahon

“Addictive... a #MeToo story of power imbalances and blurred boundaries which will resonate with many.”
- Red

Author: Sarah Gilmartin

Genres: Literary Fiction

To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, Kate meticulously plans a dinner party – from the fancy table setting to the perfect baked alaska waiting in the freezer. But by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests are gone, and Kate is spinning out of control.

Set between from the 1990s and the present day, from Carlow to Dublin, the family farmhouse to Trinity College, DINNER PARTY is a beautifully observed, dark and twisty novel that thrillingly unravels into family secrets and tragedy.

Haunting and unforgettable, it explores how the past informs the present, the inevitability of childhood damage resurfacing in later life – and yet how, despite everything, we can’t help returning home.

“Sarah Gilmartin is a natural writer: she gives us terrific, complex characters and strong themes, in prose that is fluent and charged with insight.”
- Anne Enright, Booker Prize-winning author of The Gathering

“There is a sprightliness and deftness of touch in Gilmartin’s writing, interspersed with wry and dark humour, that keeps the pages turning.”
- The Bookseller

“Sarah Gilmartin's depiction of an Irish family across the decades leaves the reader in no doubt how complicated love can be. A brilliant debut.”
- John Boyne, bestselling author of The Heart's Invisible Furies

“We readers know the particular pleasure of realising that the search is off - here is our next read. Here is an expert writer. And if this is a debut, then here is an author to watch. It’s a pleasure to be had on the very first page of Gilmartin’s stunning novel. Taut, compelling, Enright-esque.”
- Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss

“An immensely powerful debut novel from a writer here to stay. Sarah Gilmartin is a really wonderful storyteller.”
- Joseph O'Connor, bestselling author of Star of the Sea

“An unravelling of tragedy that the reader watches in horror... Sarah Gilmartin's page-turning literary debut is a fresh, confident and compelling new take on sibling dynamics and the family secrets that are never far from the surface.”
- Henrietta McKervey, author of The Heart of Everything

“Dinner Party is a tense and thought-provoking novel about family; desires, frustrations and their undercurrents, the landmines that people fear they'll set off if they say the wrong thing and the irresistible urge, on occasion, to do just that. Beautifully written and highly accomplished, with evocative settings and characters which will stay with me for a long time. I loved it.”
- Andrea Carter, author of The Inishowen Mysteries

“A classic Irish family saga, butterflied fearlessly, diced finely, and served up anew, achieving epic proportions from the most intimate of settings. Dinner Party: A Tragedy heralds a blazing new talent in Irish fiction.”
- Gavin Corbett, author This Is The Way

“Gilmartin has a forensic eye for the little moments and mumbled asides which reveal both her character's faults and strengths. She writes sharply and cleanly but always with a degree of compassion.”
- Jan Carson, author of The Firestarters

“Stylish and funny, acutely attentive to the painful dynamics of family, Dinner Party is a good book and an exceptional first novel from a gifted writer.”
- Conor O'Callaghan, author of We Are Not In The World

“I loved her clean, forensic writing. Gilmartin is clearly a writer to watch.”
- Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

“A different kind of modern Irish novel [...] it made me think of Belinda McKeon or Anne Enright [...] It's a really open-hearted, compassionate book shaped by tragedies and the subdued, but finally warm, survival instinct of one family in the face of tragedy.”
- Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy

“A finely observed Irish debut”
- The Guardian

“Elegantly written, Sarah Gilmartin’s Dinner Party is a study of grief and the intricacies of family relationships. I loved these siblings. Stumbling towards adulthood, broken and carrying tremendous loss, they fail, self-sabotage but persist. Gilmartin’s prose is assured and sharp sighted, the story authentic, wise and full of compassion. Brilliant.”
- Una Mannion

“There will always be room for another novel about toxic familial dysfunction, and Gilmartin’s bestselling debut enlivens that inherently claustrophobic material with darkly humorous set pieces and page-turning pace.”
- The Observer