'James is a brilliant writer, he never fails to deliver something unique. I love this book, it's lonely, funny and reassuringly dark...' - Sam Heughan

'I absolutely love this book. A brilliant evocation of a child's view of the world. The story flows effortlessly, the poems are good and it made me laugh quite a lot too. Bravo. Early in the book the child protagonist writes 'I remembered it so it must be important'. This kind of remembering is important: to remember what it is to be a child, to remember how strange the adult world seems at that age, to remember what poetry is for, to remember what it means to be hungry (in more than one sense of the word). An unsentimental and unflinching miracle of remembrance. The ending really had me 'on the edge of my seat" as they say. Get it read!' - Jarvis Cocker

'Funny, gripping and tragic, The Book of Gaels follows a penniless poet and his young sons on a manic journey across an unforgiving Ireland of the 1970s. The father's quest to see his grief-filled poems in print becomes a meditation on loss and then a desperate fight for survival. With each newly trial and setback, your heart goes out to the little family, willing them to find a place where they can at last thrive. It's a moving story that can't fail to live on in your mind' - Carolyn Kirby, author of When We Fall