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Make Strange
'DELIVERS NEW PLEASURES ON EVERY PAGE' ANNE ENRIGHT
'STYLISH, SHARP AND FIERCELY INTELLIGENT' LUCY CALDWELL
'A GLOWING, MOVING, DARING BOOK' SEÁN HEWITT
It begins on an orange afternoon, cool but ruminant, close to Halloween. Sunny, only four years old, looks up from the tub of toys in the living room and asks, 'Mama, do you remember when I died?'
Over the strange, strained year that follows, Sunny will refer repeatedly to her previous lives - and how they ended.
Her parents Lena and Odhran, who tumbled into family life after an accidental pregnancy and a hasty registry office wedding, are left desperate for answers.
Is their child suffering from disassociation, a psychological disorder or something more? Has she absorbed their own haunted histories - Lena's experience as an indie musician in the era of sleaze, or the shady legacy of madness in Odhran's family? Can we ever really protect our children? What if we can't?
From the multi-award-winning author of This Happy and We Were Young, comes a shimmering, propulsive novel about maternal concern, childhood imagination, past lives and present loves.
'DEEPLY WISE, DEEPLY HUMANE' KIERAN GODDARD
'A LUMINOUS PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG FAMILY UNDER PRESSURE' MICHELLE GALLEN
'FULL OF CURIOUS IDEAS AND MELANCHOLIC BEAUTY' SARA BAUME
'SIMPLY EXQUISITE' ANNE GRIFFIN
'STYLISH, SHARP AND FIERCELY INTELLIGENT' LUCY CALDWELL
'A GLOWING, MOVING, DARING BOOK' SEÁN HEWITT
It begins on an orange afternoon, cool but ruminant, close to Halloween. Sunny, only four years old, looks up from the tub of toys in the living room and asks, 'Mama, do you remember when I died?'
Over the strange, strained year that follows, Sunny will refer repeatedly to her previous lives - and how they ended.
Her parents Lena and Odhran, who tumbled into family life after an accidental pregnancy and a hasty registry office wedding, are left desperate for answers.
Is their child suffering from disassociation, a psychological disorder or something more? Has she absorbed their own haunted histories - Lena's experience as an indie musician in the era of sleaze, or the shady legacy of madness in Odhran's family? Can we ever really protect our children? What if we can't?
From the multi-award-winning author of This Happy and We Were Young, comes a shimmering, propulsive novel about maternal concern, childhood imagination, past lives and present loves.
'DEEPLY WISE, DEEPLY HUMANE' KIERAN GODDARD
'A LUMINOUS PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG FAMILY UNDER PRESSURE' MICHELLE GALLEN
'FULL OF CURIOUS IDEAS AND MELANCHOLIC BEAUTY' SARA BAUME
'SIMPLY EXQUISITE' ANNE GRIFFIN
305 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 4, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 17, 2026
What a fantastic novel - I don’t understand how anyone could give it less than five stars. What is wrong with people? All the characters vivid and real, and a moving narrative that follows Helena and her quest to be a good mother. Snapshots of life in urban and rural Ireland, as the once-nearly-famous singer raises her daughter who believes she has lived, and died, before. Written with such love and care that the reader can truly feel the story progress. Wonderful.
August 13, 2026
Not only is the book cover so spellbinding, but inside this book, the words are so beautifully written with lots of Irish colloquialism, which compounded my enjoyment even more.
The authors characters are portrayed with such depth and honesty, and while so many big subjects are touched upon throughout, it remains to me a story about how motherhood adds to a life and reshapes it entirely.
I found that the pages just kept on turning at an ever accelerating pace, until the various storylines came to their halting conclusion. Im left with a lot to consider, I loved it all!
The authors characters are portrayed with such depth and honesty, and while so many big subjects are touched upon throughout, it remains to me a story about how motherhood adds to a life and reshapes it entirely.
I found that the pages just kept on turning at an ever accelerating pace, until the various storylines came to their halting conclusion. Im left with a lot to consider, I loved it all!
August 21, 2026
My Rating ~ 3.5*
Make Strange by Niamh Campbell published June 4th 2026 with W&N and is described as ‘a shimmering, propulsive novel about maternal concerns, childhood imagination, past lives and present loves.’
I was intrigued when picking up this book as both the cover and the premise appealed to me. Quite a peculiar read in so many ways as nothing major happens yet as a reader you feel compelled to keep turning the pages. Lena and Odhran, following an unplanned pregnancy, get married and establish a life together. Both have lived interesting and varied lives in the past so settling into the mundanity of family life has its challenges. Four years on and Lena, now parenting fulltime, has moments when she regrets her decisions and longs for the freedom the experienced pre-motherhood. She had been a musician, a singer in a band, that had had limited success and those heady days remain in her mind, throwing her back to her carefree youth.
Lena is completely thrown one autumnal day, when Sunny, now four years old, asks about a previous life she inhabited and how she had already died. Totally freaked out, Lena panics. She is convinced something is wrong with Sunny. She speaks to others who dismiss her worry as no more than childish behaviour, something Sunny will grow out of, but Lena is not convinced.
On a trip west to Odhran’s family home in Co. Clare, his mother, a retired GP, senses something with Sunny’s behaviour, leaving Lena even more at her wits end. With Odhran hoping for a move home to his native county, he attempts to silence Lena’s concerns but it seems that Lena is on her own path, one that she needs to take in order to move on with her life.
Make Strange explores the pressures of early motherhood and the psychological impact for all involved. Lena is obsessed with the fact that Sunny’s behaviour is as a result of something she has done wrong. Guilt is a familiar word to every parent. That feeling of responsibility for every action and thought of your child is real. There are some that say you are only ever as happy as your least happy child, which often-times holds very true. You experience their emotional state and would do anything to alleviate their pain or sadness. Niamh Campbell tackles this idea, probing deeper into the mindset of the parents as they navigate this challenging time.
An interesting read, Make Strange is an evocative tale, one that leaves the reader a little unsettled and, in no doubt, that Niamh Campbell is a beautiful writer.
Make Strange by Niamh Campbell published June 4th 2026 with W&N and is described as ‘a shimmering, propulsive novel about maternal concerns, childhood imagination, past lives and present loves.’
I was intrigued when picking up this book as both the cover and the premise appealed to me. Quite a peculiar read in so many ways as nothing major happens yet as a reader you feel compelled to keep turning the pages. Lena and Odhran, following an unplanned pregnancy, get married and establish a life together. Both have lived interesting and varied lives in the past so settling into the mundanity of family life has its challenges. Four years on and Lena, now parenting fulltime, has moments when she regrets her decisions and longs for the freedom the experienced pre-motherhood. She had been a musician, a singer in a band, that had had limited success and those heady days remain in her mind, throwing her back to her carefree youth.
Lena is completely thrown one autumnal day, when Sunny, now four years old, asks about a previous life she inhabited and how she had already died. Totally freaked out, Lena panics. She is convinced something is wrong with Sunny. She speaks to others who dismiss her worry as no more than childish behaviour, something Sunny will grow out of, but Lena is not convinced.
On a trip west to Odhran’s family home in Co. Clare, his mother, a retired GP, senses something with Sunny’s behaviour, leaving Lena even more at her wits end. With Odhran hoping for a move home to his native county, he attempts to silence Lena’s concerns but it seems that Lena is on her own path, one that she needs to take in order to move on with her life.
Make Strange explores the pressures of early motherhood and the psychological impact for all involved. Lena is obsessed with the fact that Sunny’s behaviour is as a result of something she has done wrong. Guilt is a familiar word to every parent. That feeling of responsibility for every action and thought of your child is real. There are some that say you are only ever as happy as your least happy child, which often-times holds very true. You experience their emotional state and would do anything to alleviate their pain or sadness. Niamh Campbell tackles this idea, probing deeper into the mindset of the parents as they navigate this challenging time.
An interesting read, Make Strange is an evocative tale, one that leaves the reader a little unsettled and, in no doubt, that Niamh Campbell is a beautiful writer.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Very lucky to have received an early copy of this! An oddly provocative telling of the pressures of motherhood with the underlying darkness of a child tormented by her own death. This is quite a simple read with not much of a focus on plot but rather a depiction of unique familial relationships. Hoped for more darkness with a deeper dive into the child but an interesting read nonetheless!
September 4, 2026
This story has haunted me all summer. It scratches an itch, a fear, a hidden shame that mothers carry that your child is exceptional: yes, but maybe too exceptional? Maybe 'strange'? The child in this story is precocious and adorable and creepily weird. The internal musings of the mother are profound as she navigates post-capitalist angst and the mapless route of motherhood. I loved it.
September 23, 2026
I get that it was really all about ‘past lives’ before motherhood but the strange elements involving the child is really just background noise to a bit of a slice-of-life story largely about…moving house???
Tbh I mostly found this to be extremely dull and very far removed from what the blurb promised
Tbh I mostly found this to be extremely dull and very far removed from what the blurb promised
Did Not Finish
July 12, 2026sorry I couldn’t finish this, the writing was quite lovely but it was way too slow for me
August 20, 2026
Okay; wow.
August 25, 2026
Just ran out of road in the end (no pun intended)
June 17, 2026
Such a brilliant book
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews