Before the Fall

A historical murder mystery of love and revenge against the background of intimate war.

It's August in the long, hot summer of 1995 and Jo Devereux can't believe that she still hasn't returned home to San Francisco, though the time for her to have her baby draws near.

Why is she staying on in Ireland, in this crumbling shed at the edge of the ocean?

Jo has spent months writing about her great-uncle death at the hands of Dan O'Donovan -- but now she is brought to consider just who led Dan to his grisly murder, by suffocation in Mucknamore's notorious sinking sands.

Was her beloved Granny Peg really capable of luring him out there in revenge for the killing of her brother?

Or perhaps for more intimate reasons? Or was her grandmother, as Jo would like to believe, innocent of all?

Combing family letters and diaries for what has gone unsaid, Jo is unprepared for her reaction, as Civil War reaches its peak and she comes to realise the price she, and her people, had to pay for freedom.

But what does it mean for her relationship with Rory, Dan's great-nephew, as he draws ever closer? Will her mission to redeem the past turn out to be the key to her future?

Or is she about to lose out, all over again?

Before the Fall is a sweeping, multigenerational tale set in 1920s and 1990s Ireland and 1980s San Francisco. It is the sequel to After the Rising

Praise for Orna Ross and The Irish Trilogy

"A highly ambitious, engaging and evocative novel and a hauntingly captivating read." - Sunday Independent

"The sort of massive book you could happily curl up with for the entire winter, an impressive canvas interweaving a contemporary story of love, emigration and loss with the complex world of civil war politics, emerging women's rights and buried secrets. It explores the influence of our families on who we later become, in literary, lyrical language, while still being a captivating read." -Irish Independent

"The writer has taken on a tough job - interweaving past and present and making them strike fire off each other... [and] has made brilliant use of original sources, including local historians in Wexford, adding the icing on the cake." -Evening Herald

"Epic sweep...ambitious scope... an intelligent book." - Sunday Tribune

"A riveting story...vividly brought to life." - Emigrant Online