Chat star Graham Norton’s latest novel is set to be his most personal yet as he takes us back to a rural Irish village in 1987.
The 56-year-old’s third book is called ‘Home Stretch’ and sees the village community looking forward to a wedding between two popular residents.
The villagers have to deal with a tragedy and the protagonist has to find a way to piece his life back together after a devastating car crash.
Home Stretch follows the star’s previous novels ‘Holding’ and ‘A Keeper’ which were both bestsellers in Ireland and the UK.
Norton said: “Like many, I had always wanted to write a novel, but quietly assumed it would remain an unrealised ambition.
“I am, therefore, both astonished and delighted to find myself talking about my third book. ‘Home Stretch’ is my most personal story to date and I look forward to readers meeting these new characters.
“The choices we make as young people can have long lasting consequences, sometimes unexpected, and often devastating.
“Home Stretch’ is a book that begins with a catastrophic accident. Three people survive, but are they really the lucky ones?”
Norton’s publishers Coronet said: “Connor, the young driver of the car, lives. But staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as living with the shame, and so he leaves the only place he knows for another life.
“Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, by the noughties he has made a home – of sorts – for himself in New York. The city provides shelter and possibility for the displaced, somewhere Connor can forget his past and forge a new life.
“But the secrets, the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind will not be silenced. And before long, Connor will have to meet his past.”