The Seven O’Clock Club

DEBUT Ireland’s first novel ostensibly explores stages of grief and how the process unfolds in a group therapy setting. Readers are first introduced to four Londoners of varying ages and backgrounds, who separately responded to an ad for an experimental grief therapy group and now find themselves awkwardly face-to-face. Each is grieving an unknown loss. Details about their backgrounds and experiences are revealed slowly, as though readers are participating in the therapy sessions with them. The characters are very different but they quickly bond, throwing the therapist’s plans into disarray as various combinations begin meeting up outside the sessions. There is a dreamy, detached quality to these outside-session scenes, whereas the sessions themselves are emotionally intense and hyper-focused. As readers learn more about each character’s tragedy, a romance between two of them heats up. Meanwhile, a parallel plot is revealed regarding the true origin of the group and the mysterious circumstances that brought them together.