South Mayo native launches new book

BALLINROBE native Mick Donnellan launched his fourth novel, The Naked Flame, at the monthly market in the Cornmarket.

Mick, who has also written several successful plays and has founded his own theatre company, completed the novel during lockdown in 2020.

“Set in Athlone, The Naked Flame is a story of love, loss, betrayal, and passion. John Joe is engaged but doesn’t want to get married,” his official website describes.

“He’s not sure how to break this to Karen. Then it’s time for the stag party in Madrid. There he meets Marilyn. They spend the night together and everything changes. Now the wedding is cancelled, the police want to talk to him about a double murder and the phone is ringing with mysterious requests to come to London.

“John Joe suddenly finds himself in a surreal world, full of unusual characters and extreme danger, with no obvious way out. Met with impossible choices he can only trust the alluring woman that offers all the answers – but at what cost?”

Mick says he got the idea for the plot from living in Athlone for the last number of years.

“I supposed driving around the place, you get a lot of inspiration, you hear a lot of stories and you hear a lot of incidents, so I just started to gather up ideas from what I knew and what I’d heard and seen around. As a writer, once you start looking for ideas, they just start to come,” Mick says.

Mick’s latest novel is rich in comedy, tragedy, hints of the absurd and undertones of a man in existential crisis. The story has plenty of unexpected twists and ominous turns that culminate in a devastating climax and is guaranteed to be an entertaining read.