The friendship that once felt unbreakable fractured under the weight of their shared secret
Two Irish authors known for warmth and wit have crossed into darker territory, asking an old question in a new register: what becomes of the secrets we bury in youth? Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen's Our Deadly Summer follows two friends whose bond was forged — and fractured — by a single act on a Long Island summer in 2001, and who must face each other again more than twenty years later. The novel suggests that some silences do not fade with time but calcify, and that the friendships we believe are unbreakable are often the ones most quietly undone by what we cannot say.
- Two best friends bury a body during a J1 summer in New York in 2001, and the weight of that secret quietly dismantles the friendship that survived everything else.
- More than two decades of silence are broken by a single unexpected email, forcing both women back into a reckoning neither has been prepared for.
- The novel holds comedy and dread in the same hand — aging bodies, early-2000s nostalgia, and double vodka Red Bulls sit alongside genuine moral tension and the creeping cost of concealment.
- Comparisons to Bad Sisters surface naturally, as the book braids female camaraderie with darker undercurrents in a way that feels rooted rather than borrowed.
- McLysaght and Breen land their genre pivot decisively — the transition from humorous contemporary fiction to darkly comic crime reads as both seamless and assured.
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen built their reputation on the Aisling novels — books that captured the voice of contemporary Irish women with humor and genuine affection. Our Deadly Summer marks a deliberate turn toward darker material, and it holds together without surrendering what made their earlier work beloved.
The story moves between two timelines, centered on the friendship of Laura and Dee. In 2001, they spend a J1 summer on Long Island — waitressing at a country club, drinking in dive bars, collecting nose piercings and regrettable tattoos with the particular confidence of people who believe consequences belong to someone else. Before the summer ends, they bury a body. The act binds them in ways neither anticipated, and then slowly, quietly, breaks them apart. More than twenty years pass without a word between them, until an email from Laura forces both women back into each other's lives and toward the reckoning they have long deferred.
What distinguishes the novel is its refusal to choose between comedy and suspense. The sharp, affectionate observations of the Aisling books are still present — a passage about chin hairs grown overnight, the ghost of nights spent on double vodka and Red Bull — but underneath the humor runs a genuine and growing tension. The dialogue feels authentically rooted in the early 2000s, not as nostalgia performed for its own sake, but as the natural speech of people who actually lived through that moment.
At its heart, the book is an inquiry into female friendship, loyalty, and shame — into what we owe those we have wronged, and whether certain secrets can ever truly stay buried. The authors navigate these questions without losing their wit or their humanity, and the result is a novel that grips, makes you laugh, and lingers long after the last page.
Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen have spent years building a devoted readership with their Aisling novels—books that captured the voice and sensibility of contemporary Irish women with warmth and humor. With Our Deadly Summer, they've made a deliberate turn toward darker material, and the result is a crime novel that proves they can handle the shift without losing what made them beloved in the first place.
The story unfolds across two timelines, anchored by the friendship between Laura and Dee. In 2001, the pair travel to Long Island on a J1 working holiday, the kind of summer that defined early-2000s youth: they waitress at an exclusive country club, spend nights in dive bars, get nose piercings and regrettable tattoos, and live with the particular recklessness of people in their twenties who believe consequences are something that happens to other people. But before that summer ends, they bury a body together. The act binds them in ways neither could have anticipated.
More than two decades pass. Laura and Dee have not spoken since that night. The friendship that once felt unbreakable has fractured under the weight of their shared secret, the kind of silence that hardens into something almost physical. Then an unexpected email from Laura arrives, forcing them back into each other's lives and demanding that they finally reckon with what happened and why.
What makes the novel work is the authors' refusal to choose between comedy and suspense. They maintain the sharp, affectionate observations that characterized their earlier work—there's a passage about the indignities of aging that lands with particular force for anyone who came of age in that era, the casual detail about how Dee now grows chin hairs overnight, a souvenir of nights spent drinking double vodka and Red Bull like water. But underneath the humor runs a genuine tension, a sense that something ugly happened and that the cost of keeping it hidden has only grown with time.
The novel invites comparison to Bad Sisters, the Irish television drama that similarly braids together female camaraderie with darker undercurrents and the heightened, chaotic emotions of youth. There's warmth in the writing even when the material turns grim, and the dialogue feels genuinely rooted in the early 2000s—not in a way that feels forced or nostalgic for its own sake, but as the natural speech of people who lived through that particular moment.
At its core, Our Deadly Summer is an exploration of female friendship, loyalty, and shame. It asks what we owe to the people we've hurt, what we owe to ourselves, and whether some secrets can ever truly be buried. The authors prove they can navigate these questions without sacrificing the wit and humanity that readers have come to expect from them. The transition from humorous contemporary fiction to darkly comic crime has been seamless, and emphatic. This is a book that grips, that makes you laugh, and that leaves you thinking about the choices we make when we're young and how those choices echo forward through decades.
Citações Notáveis
They were inseparable, going out as often as they could to student nights and dive bars and to see the hopeless bands that Dee suspects are responsible for the creeping tinnitus she has now.— From Our Deadly Summer, describing the friendship in 2001
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a book about two women burying a body in 2001 feel like it's really about something else?
It's about the weight of silence. They keep this secret for over twenty years without speaking to each other. That's not just a plot device—that's a kind of death in itself, the death of a friendship that was once everything.
The authors are known for humor. How do they keep that alive when the subject matter is this dark?
They don't soften the darkness. Instead, they let the humor sit right next to it. There's a line about chin hairs growing overnight—it's funny and sad at the same time because it's about aging, about how time passes, about how we become strangers to ourselves. That's the real tone of the book.
What does the 2001 setting add that a contemporary setting wouldn't?
It gives you the feeling of being young and invincible, the sense that consequences are abstract. You can almost smell the dive bars and the bad decisions. And then you realize those decisions have consequences that last decades. The nostalgia isn't sentimental—it's haunting.
Is this a book about crime, or is crime just the frame?
Crime is the frame. The book is about what happens to a friendship when you're bound to someone by something terrible. It's about loyalty and shame and whether you can ever really forgive each other—or yourself.
Would someone who's never read their Aisling novels enjoy this?
Absolutely. You don't need to know their earlier work. But if you do, you'll notice how they've kept the warmth and the ear for dialogue while adding real darkness. It's a natural evolution, not a departure.