Liz Nugent Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Liz Nugent is a published and acclaimed Irish author. Liz has lived in Dublin and was born there in 1967, currently habituating there with her husband Richard McCullough, who is a sound engineer and musician. A natural writer, Liz Nugent has written for and in a variety of mediums including television, radio drama, broadcast, and of course novel form.

Her first novel is titled Unravelling Oliver and this book was published by Penguin Ireland to high acclaim and sales. It was eventually published and promoted in the United States by Scout Press. It was a best seller and did so well that it was published in a total of seven languages to date in countries around the world, in addition to winning a 2014 Irish Book Award.

She also wrote a second novel called Lying in Wait that won also an Irish Book Award as well as being picked for Richard & Judy Book Club’s U.K. spring list of 2017, where it won the Readers’ Vote. Her third novel is called Skin Deep.

Nugent has been a story associate for Fair City, a soap opera on television. Nugent had pieces accepted to RTE Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany series and has had two children’s stories featured as part of RTE Radio 1’s Fiction 15 series. A short story called Alice was short listed for a Prize in 2006. She also penned an animated show for children named The Resistors.

Nugent also penned a drama that aired in a series live on TG4. The Appointment being one of four half hour dramas that aired for television and selected out of many. Appearances, a radio drama, showed for the N.Y. Festivals in ’08. She won an EATC bursary as well as time at international writing workshops in 2007 for the episode of the drama series Campus.

Her first novel was initially published in Ireland and got a lot of acclaim and awards, winning the crime novel prize at the Irish Book Awards. It was also nominated for the International Dublin Literature Prize in 2016.

Nugent’s second book is titled Lying in Wait. It came out in July 2016 and went to number one on Irish Bestseller lists. She has won bursaries and time to write as well, and Lying in Wait was chosen for the list for the R & J.B.C. in spring 2017 and was selected as the Reader’s Choice Award that same year in April by the club.

Liz Nugent has not only successfully had her work published but has also led workshops focusing on broadcast drama creative writing. She has run literary Salons as well as curated the literary division of the 2016 Skibbereen Arts Festival.

Published in 2014, Unravelling Oliver is Liz Nugent’s first novel. The main character is Oliver Ryan. He is a handsome man that is not only successful in his career but charismatic and desirable. He has been married to a long time to his wonderful wife Alice, who is devoted to him. They work together to write and also illustrate books for children and they are quite good at it as their books have won several awards.

Together they live and share in a life that is comfortable, with all the wonderful trappings of champagne problems and privilege, living life mostly in a state of comfort. One night after dinner, Oliver hits Alice so hard that she is knocked unconscious and from there beats her so severely that she enters into a coma. And all from the couple that is so looked up to, so at ease, so awarded and revered and wealthy.

After putting his wife into a coma, the friends and neighbors and people who live in the area try to wrap their heads around what has happened and why and how Oliver could do what he did– or what they think and suspect he did, at any rate. The unfolding of the story involves more twists and turns and manipulation than can be imagined.

Oliver is trying to deal with the aftermath of what has happened in what is a crazy act of savagery. The book is Oliver telling his story of what has happened and the defining aftermath of what he has done in the past to get to where he wanted to be. But while this horrible act lies in the past, will it ever really be done with? Or will Oliver’s past acts come back to haunt him? Envy, shame, deception and more come together in a complex and engrossing suspense story you will be hard pressed to put down.

Lying in Wait is Liz Nugent’s second novel and was published in 2016. The novel is not connected to the plot of her first novel but shares murder on the part of a man of someone they were involved with, so thematically they are sequels of sorts (but not literally).

This novel opens up from the point of view of a wife whose husband has murdered a woman named Annie Doyle. Andrew and Lydia Fitzsimons find that they are meeting up with a prostitute who is on drugs. This is particularly shocking because if anyone knew they would be surprised that a straight-laced and respected judge and his quiet wife would be doing such a thing.

No one would certainly think that the judge and his wife would be killing a prostitute and putting her six feet under in their manicured local home garden. And yet, somehow, that appears to be exactly what has happened. And the dead woman named Annie Doyle has a sister that is, unfortunately, looking for her drug addicted sister and isn’t stopping anytime soon.

Lydia stands in to protect their social standing and their son, Laurence. Laurence might know more than his mother thinks and he might even be a little more than obsessed with the family of the dead girl, which could be a problem all its own. But the prostitute tried to double cross the wrong people, and in a worsening financial situation, tensions were running high.

Will Annie be found? And will Laurence’s intrigue in her sister ruin everything for everyone when the dead girl could just be forgotten? The book is a fast paced thriller that will have you hanging on to every word.