August is a Wicked Month

Lose yourself in the legendary Edna O'Brien's simmering romantic tale of a woman rediscovering herself on the French Riviera ...

'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna O'Brien.' Anne Enright



'Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride

'Surprising and beautiful and courageous .. A beacon.' Megan Nolan

''Glittering energy.' Colm Tóibín

'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett



Separated from her husband and young son, Ellen leaves behind the loneliness of London for a new life of excitement and sexual freedom:a 'jaunt into iniquity' on the gorgeous French Riviera. However, she soon discovers that independence blurs into loneliness, especially when she receives some heart-breaking news ...



Banned in several countries on first publication, August is a Wicked Month is a shimmering, sensual tale of a woman rediscovering herself - and it feels just as glorious, radical, and escapist as today.



Edna O'Brien wrote more than twenty celebrated novels, including her classic The Country Girls Trilogy, as well as multiple plays and works of non-fiction, which have been translated into over thirty languages. Her final novel was the acclaimed Girl, which won the Kerry Group Prize for Fiction in 2020. She was the recipient of many accolades, including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Arts Gold Medal, the Frank O'Connor Prize, the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature and the David Cohen Prize for Literature. In 2018, O'Brien was appointed an honorary Dame of the Order of the British Empire, and in 2021, she was also awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she lived in London for many years before her death on 27 July 2024.