I had great fun (not) back and forth with my friends at Unbound to agree the wording for the back cover and the description to accompany the listing on the various websites. The old description was a bit melodramatic for my taste and was put together for the fundraising campaign. This is the latest version:
Dolly Considine runs a late-night drinking establishment catering to the needs of thirsty politicians and theatricals in Dublin's legendary drinking area, the Catacombs.

Julian Ryder (aka Paddy Butler) is an eighteen-year-old aspiring writer in need of shelter from his bullying older brother.

As the new live-in lounge assistant at Dolly Considine’s Hotel, Julian soon embroils himself in the shebeen’s gossip and the guests’ bedsheets, and turns Dolly’s entourage into fodder for his literary ambitions, making reality difficult to separate from fantasy…

Set against the run-up to the Pro-life Constitutional Amendment of September 1983 and moving fluidly between the 1950s of Dolly’s youth and Julian’s Summer of Unrequited Love, the hotel becomes a stage for farce and tragedy. Between Julian’s fictions, Dolly’s Secrets, narrow party politics, and the papier-mâché Mother Ireland figure giving birth while surrounded by sword-wielding dancers – the rich cocktail threatens to blow them, and even Ireland itself, wide apart.

Now that the cover is agreed, and the final checks done on the text, it will shortly go to the printers. I am looking for reviewers and reviews, so please get in touch if you would like a reviewer’s digital copy. I’m hoping Dolly will be listed on NetGalley shortly. If you sign up to NetGallery you can apply for free books to review. I will be looking for all the reviews I can get, so if you are a reviewer or want to be one, or know any, let them know that Dolly will be waiting. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Please visti my website to get even more information, and to sign up to receive my latest Newsletter.  Each newsletter for the rest of 2021 will include a free short story. https://www.eamonsomers.com/ 

Dolly is available to pre-order via the major booksellers, and hopefully will be in independent bookshops soon. Hailstones decimated our hosta plants today, what is the world coming to.