Mary Costello (Mary Costello – Canongate Books) was a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. Her collection of short stories, The China Factory, published in 2012, was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. Her second book and first novel, Academy Street, was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa First Novel Prize and the EU Prize for Literature in 2014. The novel went on to win the Irish Novel of the Year Award as well as the Irish Book of the Year.
Costello’s 2026 novel is ‘A Beautiful Loan’. The summary is as follows: It’s Dublin in 1985. Nineteen-year-old Anna, a naïve and introverted schoolteacher from rural Galway, becomes infatuated with Peter, a worldly man sixteen years her senior. Their relationship is marked by Anna’s obsessive longing and Peter’s emotional distance. Despite her misgivings and a traumatic loss of virginity she barely remembers, they marry. The marriage is plagued by loneliness, Peter’s frequent disappearances for mountain climbing, and failed pregnancies – later attributed to an STI he had given her. They eventually separate after eight years of marriage.
Years later, Anna enters a relationship with Karim, a kind Algerian tech professional living in Dublin. Seeking stability and meaning, she immerses herself in his Muslim faith and even converts. However, the relationship becomes restrictive as Karim’s religious devotion grows; he begins to condemn the literature and music she loves and insists her dog, Boo, live outside.
Throughout these relationships, Anna turns to literature, philosophy, and psychology – specifically the works of Albert Camus, Carl Jung, and the I Ching—to find her own identity. Guided by a Jungian therapist, Anna eventually moves toward ‘individuation’, learning to claim her own life and agency rather than seeking validation through men.
The title is derived from a verse in the Koran, which suggests that those who give ‘to Allah a beautiful loan’ will be granted double credit and forgiveness.
Check if this recent, critically acclaimed, novel is in stock at your local library by consulting the online catalogue here Home | South Lanarkshire Libraries (sllclibrary.co.uk)
224 pages in Canongate Books
First published 2026
ISBN-13 : 978-1837263103
Mary Costello