controversial Irish bestseller. It was later re-issued by Flamingo/HarperCollins. 18 years after its publication, it was published in the United States by the University of Texas Press and received the lead front cover review on the New York Times Book Review section. The Irish Times said of it: "All 1990s life is there – drink, drugs, political corruption – all the words which have been repeated so often now that they have lost their power to shock. Here, they shock". The Family on Paradise Pier (2005) starts in a tranquil County Donegal village in 1915 and follows the journeys of one Irish family through the Irish War of Independence, the General Strike in Britain, 1930s Moscow, the Spanish Civil War, and on to Soviet gulags, Irish internment camps, and Blitz-era London. The Goold-Verschoyle children are born into a respected freethinking Protestant family in a Manor House alive with laughter, debate and fascinating guests. The world of picnics and childish infatuations is soon under threat as political changes within Ireland and the wider world encroach. This family saga is based on Based on real-life people, with the character of Brendan based on Brian Goold-Verschoyle who died in a Soviet gulag and Art is based on real-life Irish communist Neil Goold-Verschoyle. She is based on Sheila Fitzgerald (née Goold-Verschoyle; 1903–2000). The novel's origins are in tape recordings that the author made in her caravan in 1992. Other novels 1987 and 1991: The Woman’s Daughter 1992: Emily’s Shoes 1994: A Second Life 1997: Father's Music 2000: Temptation 2007: The Valparaiso Voyage 2005: The Family on Paradise Pier (a story about Brian Goold-Verschoyle) 2010: New Town Soul 2012: The Fall of Ireland 2015: Tanglewood 2016: The Lonely Sea and Sky (a coming of age novel about the wartime rescue by the Irish ship, The MV Kerlogue) 2018: An Ark of Light (this standalone novel tells the story of the later half of the life of Eva Fitzgerald – née Goold-Verschoyle – the central figure in Bolger's 2005 novel, The Family on Paradise Pier. 2020: Secrets Never Told. Bolger's first and only collection of short stories, one of them close to novella length. His publishers called them stories that "delve under the veneer of our lives, delve into the secrets that bind relationships together or tears them apart, and create worlds where people discover how nothing about their past is truly certain". In far shorter