Greener by Gráinne Murphy acquired by Legend Press

‘I found myself thinking more about the faded friendships, the resurrected friendships, the regrets‘

We are thrilled to announce that Legend Press has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, for Greener the fourth novel by Irish writer Gráinne Murphy. The novel will be published in Spring 2024. Rights were acquired by Cari Rosen, Commissioning Editor of Legend Press, from Northbank Talent Management.

Greener explores the changing dynamics of friendships and asks whether adult friendships are, by their nature, transactional rather than true. In finding a new identity as adults, can we hold onto the friends who knew us as we used to be?

Gráinne grew up in Kilmichael, in rural county Cork. Her debut novel Where the Edge Is was published by Legend Press in 2020, followed by The Ghostlights (2021) and Winter People (2022). A winner of the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair 2019, Gráinne’s novels have been shortlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award 2019 and Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award 2019. Gráinne’s writing reflects her interest in family and identity, in those bittersweet moments where we must stare life down and choose who we want to be.

Gráinne comments: ‘One of the reasons teenage friendships are so intense is that we live in each other’s heads and homes in a way we don’t as adults. I was interested in that tangling-up of families and what might happen if those dynamics had to be revisited years later, among people who once knew each other inside out but who now have to be adult and polite. A lot of books deal with the power of women’s friendships and I found myself thinking more about the faded friendships, the resurrected friendships, the regrets. There’s also something intriguingly fragile about a group of three that made me want to poke in the cracks and see if it held.’

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