In the seaside town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods in its caravan parks, chippers and amusement arcades. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; she dreams of escaping to art college with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine and, from there, taking on the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. Though they don't yet know it, Helen and Stella's lives are pulled by tides beyond their control. Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is a luminous and unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken - and a brilliantly observed portrait of a small-town community.

Simon Hanlon is 15 years old in 1987 when he and his father attend the Remembrance Sunday Parade in Enniskillen when the IRA bomb goes off. He survives the blast but experiences seizures which disappear only to return over thirty years later when he is living New York. As he waits for an operation that could render him unable to form memories or emotions, Simon tries to understand what links his fifteen-year-old and forty-eight-year-old selves, and what it is that has made his seizures return.Questioning the notion of who we are, what we can know, and how we struggle to understand not only our own lives but the lives of others, Remembrance Sunday explores the legacy of violence and grief. What makes a person want to harm another and how can we begin to understand our capacity for violence? Moving between New York City's China Town to the border farms of Northern Ireland, this is a moving and unforgettable novel about love, empathy and the weight of history on a young life.