I Left the Room Burning - Beth O'Brien

A woman who never wanted children finds herself reluctantly bringing up her sister's daughter. The aunt is in an abusive relationship. The niece is a strange child who wishes to disappear. The narrative threaded through these eighty short poems confuses and obfuscates, whilst at the same time completely drawing the reader in to the extent that by the end, one is left with the feeling of having watched a deeply immersive film or read an engrossing novella.

Beth O'Brien weaves magic with her lyrical and evocative language, and with the tangibility of her characters' unreliable voices she reveals herself as a master storyteller.