SOON TO BE A MAJOR STREAMING SERIES A riveting technological thriller following a woman whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash and she is left alone with an unnerving home robot, only to get caught up in an AI-related conspiracy.&nbsp; In near-future Japan, Susie Sakamoto is mourning the loss of her husband and son to a plane crash. Alone in her big modern house, which feels like more of a prison, Susie spends her days drinking heavily and taking her anger out at the only "sentient" thing left in her life: Sunny, the annoying home robot her husband designed. Susie despises Sunny, and sometimes even gets a sinking feeling that Sunny is out to hurt her. To escape her paranoia and depression, Susie frequents the seedy, drug-fueled bars of the city, where she hears rumors of The Dark Manual, a set of guidelines that allow you to reprogram your robot for nefarious purposes. In the hopes of finding a way to turn off Sunny for good, Susie begins to search for the manual, only to learn it's too late: the machines are becoming more sentient and dangerous. Thrust into the center of a dark, corporate war, Susie realizes there's someone behind the code, pulling the strings. And they want her dead. With a darkly humorous yet propulsive and lyrical voice, O'Sullivan presents us with an unsettling look at a future that feels all too real. Gripping and thought-provoking, Sunny is a haunting character study of an anxious woman teetering in an anxious time.&nbsp;

Sunny: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

O’Sullivan, Colin

Literary

Mariner Books

Picturesque Killarney might seem the perfect place to enjoy the rare gift of sun but the town has got the blues. Bernard Dunphy, eccentric jarvey and guitarist, is pining for his unrequited love and has to contend with an ailing mother and an ailing horse. His troubled friend Jack gets embroiled in a violent crime. A trio of girlfriends becomes entangled in the terrible webs of their own making. The novel fluctuates between darkness and light as the protagonists struggle with their inner demons. Can friendship, love and music save their sinking souls?   “Colin O'Sullivan writes with a style and a swagger all his own. His voice - unique, strong, startlingly expressive - both comes from and adds to Ireland's long and lovely literary lineage. Like many of that island's sons and daughters, O'Sullivan sends language out on a gleeful spree, exuberant, defiant, ever-ready for a party. Only a soul of stone could resist joining in.” - Niall Griffiths

Killarney Blues

Contemporary

Betimes Books

This unique Christmas collection, published by Betimes Books to celebrate our first year of publishing, showcases nine stories from our authors, debut novelists and established writers. These stories will take you from today’s New York to 1970’s Indonesia, from Paris in the Roaring Twenties to the Mexican border in 2014, from Kansas City in 1935 to the post-Celtic Tiger Killarney. Some are heart-warming. Some explore the darkest side of the Season. Some will make you laugh. Some might make you cry. All will make you think.

Gifts: Bittersweet Christmas stories

Hawken, Sam

McDonald, Craig

Hogan, David

Stevens, Kevin

Kalich, Richard

Books, Betimes

Colt, Hadley

Mallon, Jackie

Mayo, Donald Finnaeus

Short Stories & Anthologies

How much can one land take? How much can one man take? What if the rains kept coming? What if the huge waves kept crashing in? What if the plates kept shifting and volcanoes kept up their choking spew? What if neighbouring nations became more antagonistic and the rest of the world began to forget you? It’s the not-too-distant-future and a certain Asian country is in physical and moral tatters. What was once a polite society has become fouled and corrupted. Part-time referee and full-time PE teacher, Tombo, stands in the middle of all this, trying to find fairness and balance in his own life, as things continue to crumble around him. Added to his personal miseries – missing-presumed-dead daughter, eerily silent wife, unrequited lusts – comes the unwanted, unwarranted attention of two, mean-spirited, wrathful adolescent girls, who have decided that he is to be their “chosen one”. Can this harangued Everyman battle against the forces that envelop him, or will he too fall to the whims of the new dystopia? In this pulsing, provocative, visionary work, O’Sullivan couples his usual lyrical fervour with a philosophical acuity to present before us a trembling world that may not be too far away... As well as being an absurd existential novel it is also a political satire, and a cautionary tale about what may lay ahead, therefore a novel very much for our times. “Colin O'Sullivan's writing is an antic, mordant and perverse plunge into strange and unnerving worlds.” Colin Barrett

The Starved Lover Sings

Susie Sakamoto, an Irishwoman in Japan, spends her days drinking heavily and cursing the home robot that takes care of all her domestic needs. She despises the thing her dead husband designed and is under the impression that it is about to do her harm. To escape the overwhelming grief of her missing family, she takes to the nighttime and the lawless section of the city, loitering in seedy bars with her wild, drug-fuelled, hypersexual friend, Mixxy. Are Susie's persecutions merely a result of her own paranoia? Can the parliament of owls gathering eerily in the trees outside be of any significance, any assistance? Or will she have to search for the mythic Dark Manual, to find a way to finally switch off the homebot and end her litany of woes? ...it might already be too late...the machines are on the rise. Japan-based award-winning Irish writer Colin O'Sullivan couples his usual lyrical flourishes with tense and often terrifying noir-ish scenes, to present before us an unsettling vision of an anxious woman teetering in an anxious time. Fans of "Black Mirror," the dark humour of early Haruki Murakami, and even Asimov or Aldiss, will be keen to sample another frantic foray into a near and nervy future.

The Dark Manual

Marshmallows

Genre Fiction

Every so often a book comes along that is sure to wow both the young and the... ahem… not-so-much-anymore. What you hold in your hands is that rarity! 
Gathered here are three topsy-turvy tales for a topsy-turvy world, tales with tongues placed firmly in cheeks. These fairytales are given excitingly fresh varnishes as we are presented with a host of new (yes, new!) unforgettable, delightful characters who are destined to win your hearts as they wrestle with the ways of our chaotic days. 
Meet Cinderella’s sister who lives in a dustbin (reading philosophy), who must abandon her fiefdom of filth in order to venture out and save the famous princess! 
Meet Little Red Riding Hoods’ little brother, Little Black Hoodie, the computer geek (and sometime hacker); a reluctant hero who must be persuaded to save the environment! 
And, finally, in The Secret Siblings Support Group we encounter a horde of comic others you wish you’d always known and will surely cherish for years to come. 
Who thought age-old stories could be pushed into shiny (and very funny) new territories? Colin O’Sullivan, that’s who! 
Here the acclaimed Irish writer provides entertainment for all the family with spoofs that will tickle as well as provoke.

The True Story of Binderella and Other Secret Siblings

Humor & Satire

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Books by O’Sullivan, Colin