In these eleven stories friendships strain, families break apart, love fades, love warps, and love endures. Moving between Ireland, London and the South of France, from the turn of the century to the present day, Niamh Mulvey asks in Hearts and Bones who we are now that we've brought the old gods down. Each of the stories is pulsing with vitality, immediacy and humanity, and from the first page, when we're introduced to an tense, charged mother-daughter reunion, the characters grab you by the heart and don't let you go. Witty, sharply observed, and often terribly moving, Hearts and Bones is the announcement of an extraordinary new Irish literary talent.