Love a short story collection! Can't believe it's this writer's debut, it's so well written and mature. I think my favourite story was the titular Hearts & Bones.

I enjoyed these stories when I was reading them, but even a few hours later I had forgotten what had happened.The Doll was the only exception to that, unfortunately.

Deeply moving and profoundly real, I loved this book and felt instantly connected to the characters (who seemed to spring off the page). I’ll be watching out for this author in the future.

Hearts and Bones is a book about relationships. It explores what love does to us, and how we survive it.
Closely observed, sparely told and deeply felt, the ten stories of Hearts and Bones will stay with you after you finish the book

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I knew it would be a good book, just from the cover and blurb (don't judge a book by its cover- oops).

A beautiful debut of a collection of short stories. I really would like to read more from the author as some of the stories had me absolutely hooked.

This is a really well crafted and beautifully written collection of short stories. And to think it is a debut! It makes me really look forward to reading Niamh's first novel, The Amendments, next year.

This was a pretty solid selection of short stories from Irish author Niamh Mulvey. As is my usual experience with short story collections, I enjoy some and struggle to connect with others. My favourite story of the collection was Hearts and Bones itself, it was a really wonderfully executed story around relationships and human connections. I also really enjoyed The Doll and Mother's Day.
Some of them felt a little unfinished and some I wanted more of. Which is often my issue with short stories, they sometimes feel like they have so much more to tell.

Overall a pretty solid collection and the subtitle "Love Songs for Late Youth" is an absolutely perfect description.

Hearts and Bones is a collection of eleven short stories from Irish author Niamh Mulvey; this is her first published work.

I enjoyed some of those eleven stories more than others, as I think is always the way with a collection of essays, but my overwhelming feeling upon finishing this book was how well written, and thought provoking it was. I found myself still thinking about some of the characters for days afterwards.

The connecting thread between all of the stories is relationships; between mothers and daughters, siblings, romantic and not-so-romantic partners. Love, families, and religion are also explored and here I must give a content warning for miscarriage, mental health struggles, bullying, and alcoholism. It’s hard to describe too, but the author captures perfectly those relationships you get into as a teen/young adult that make you feel squirmy when you think about them. Sorry, I have no better way of phrasing that because I am not a beautiful writer, like Niamh Mulvey is, but at least I get to enjoy her stunning prose instead 🥰

With thanks to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for the opportunity to read Hearts & Bones, available to buy now!

I love love love a short story collection like this one - each story is a little bit dark, a little bit enticing in it's own right and some grabbed my attention more than others but a really interesting take on womanhood, the dangers of it lurking around each corner, complicated family relationships, getting older, love and men. Very easy to consume, would recommend as a collection.
Kindly gifted by NetGalley for an honest review.

This is yet another exquistely crafted, heart-wrenching collection of short stories from an Irish debut writer - in the acknowledgements of Hearts and Bones, Mulvey thanks Lucy Caldwell, and if you're a fan of Caldwell's writing then this one is a must. The stories encompass a wide range of themes, from mental health to religion to first love. All are exquistely written - Mulvey is operating at a level many accomplished short story writers can only dream of in this debut.
The author's eye us turned to more than just the usual in this collection - from the sub-title "Love Songs for Late Youth" I expected a collection for The Irish Millenial but the stories range far beyond what I expected - one story is narrated by a ten-year-old, another, split over three parts, features a young man and his mother as key characters. It's refreshing to see an Irish female writer take on these other points of view, and her nuanced and empathic tone brings them to life.Standout stories included the aforementioned three-parter, The Doll, as well as the title story, and the melancholic "Feathers". This is an outrageously good collection of stories.

What an achingly beautiful collection of short stories. Stories of love, loss, family, friends and shame, which made me feel quite desolate and heartsick. I was quite blown away by this - lyrical, sharp, witty writing and the feelings of sheer agony of childhood and late youth, as you try to find out who you are, and who everyone else is!
Strong, smart and emotional - perfect!
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own.

This was a readable, but for me, ultimately forgettable collection. Only one story really stood out and it’s the only one I can remember well having finished the book. It’s by no means a bad collection or poorly written, it just didn’t stick with me.

I love a short story collection, especially from an author previously unknown to me. There are 11 stories in this collection and I genuinely enjoyed them all. My favourite and most memorable were 'Mother's Day' - this was a powerful, moving and relatable story about the relationship between a mother and her grown daughter whose lives have gone in very different directions. And 'Feathers' which took an unexpected turn!

I highly recommend this collection and cannot wait to read more from Niamh Mulvey.

Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth is a beautiful collection of short stories that portray the insecurities as well as the sometimes naive self assurance of young people, trying to love and be loved. It moves through themes of motherhood (reflections on motherhood in its many guises appear throughout the stories), grief, mental health, estrangement, class and expectation, the prose often ‘dear diary’ like in cadence and in authenticity. Among my favourite stories were Mother’s Day, Feathers and Good For You, Cecilia. The collection is thought-provoking, moving and left me wanting more.

Thanks to Macmillian for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very quick read with accessible language. I found it an interesting introduction to Niamh Mulvey’s writing.

Throughout the collection, Mulvey explores a range of relationship dynamics (everything from mother-daughter to a young woman and the hateful persona adopted by her boyfriend when he uses his ventriloquist dummy). It is about the various ways our loved ones can fail us, and we them. More than that, though, what struck me about the stories was that they were all in some way about a character’s alienation of their loved ones.

High points in the collection were:

The Doll
This is by far the best story in the collection. It’s about a young man who is seemingly influenced by his ventriloquist dummy. His hateful persona pushes all of his relationships to breaking point. It’s a clever and creepy portrayal of how a person’s mental health struggles can affect the people around them.

Mother’s Day
(Explores social mobility / feelings associated with ‘outgrowing’ your family)

Blackbirds
(Character doesn’t realise he’s an outcast until it’s too late to do anything about it. This also explores the idea of socially escaping the family who raised you & feeling like you can’t go back)

There were less successful stories in the collection. My first Marina, for example, ended with an abrupt and massive leap forward in time, which didn’t seem justified and felt incongruous with the pacing of the rest of the story.

Overall I enjoyed this collection and will be keen to see what else she has written!

*Thank you Pan MacMillan for my advanced reader copy of this book.*

Really take the 'love songs for late youth' subheading to heart. These stories are lyrical glimpses at young love, akin to music in that they flit by but leave a resounding emotion within you. A lovely collection, and a fab debut.

I love reading short stories so this was a collection I was really looking forward to. Based between Ireland and London, they feature protagonists that range in age, gender and circumstance. If not outright sad, each of the stories is touched with sadness, you can feel it seeping in.

My favourite was the titular story, 'Heart and Bones', which closed out the collection beautifully. I can't wait to see what Niamh Mulvey writes next.

Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for the opportunity to review this book!

This is a really lean, masterfully strange series of short stories, told with a specific sense of time and place, exploring characters that instantly become familiar and compelling. It's such a hard thing to do as a writer but Niamh does this, with skill and compassion. An incredibly accomplished debut. Can't wait to read what she does next.

Though these are short stories, each is rich with character and narrative. Mulvey depicts - then proceeds to dissect - all kinds of love (maternal, lustful, romantic, religious) through a wide array of narrators with varying ages and backgrounds.
My favourite was the ‘The Doll’ - it was such a unique story unlike anything I’ve read before and I loved the shifts in perspective throughout. ‘Feathers’ and ‘Hearts and Bones’ also stood out a lot for me. Though some shined brighter than others, no story in this collection fell short. Mulvey writes with vivid observation on humankind and its complex emotions, whilst her prose is organic and seductive. Hearts and Bones has taken a firm place within my favourite short story collections and I cannot wait to see what Niamh Mulvey does next.