29 April 2026
By Tony Forde
tony@TheCork.ie
Author Rebecca Murphy is from Cork City and her winning book is set on a West Cork island, albeit a fictional one.
Winner of the RTE Mercier Press / Today Show Novel Competition
May 2025: Maura Derrane TODAY show presenter, Rebecca Murphy winner new novelist competition , Carina McNally Mercier Press and Dáithí Ó Sé TODAY show presenter ,The Today show and Mercier Press today announced the winner of the coveted new novelist competition for 2025.Rebecca Murphy from Co Wicklow originally from Cork was selected from over 600 entries to win an exclusive publishing deal.
Photography by Gerard McCarthy photography
Blood & Water Rebecca Murphy Mercier Press, due May ’26, €16.99, PB, 9781917453851
Susan arrives on Dune Island with a plan: to settle her late uncle’s estate, sign the papers, and leave. The inheritance is simple: a weathered cottage, a small distillery, and a stubborn dog named Walter. On paper, nothing she couldn’t sort in a week.
But Dune Island has been keeping its own secrets.
Cut off on the edge of the Wild Atlantic Way, where the ferry runs on Mick’s time and every glance carries a question, Susan begins to uncover what her uncle Frank left behind, not just property, but a lifetime of silence. And the longer she stays, the more the island reveals, buried stories, unspoken grief, a family history shaped as much by what was hidden as by what was known.
Murphy’s evocative prose and dual-timeline structure balance intimate psychological insight with a strong sense of place, positioning the work alongside authors like Anne Enright and Maggie O’Farrell in its unflinching yet compassionate examination of family dynamics, relationships, and the complex interplay between personal identity and inherited trauma.
Praise for Blood and Water
Blood and Water is a profoundly moving exploration of identity, the shame that echoes through families and the silent grief of losing a long-held dream. The prose is vivid and beautiful. On the human condition, Murphy writes with wit and a startling clarity. Here is an astonishing new voice in literary fiction. Sophie White Author
A beautiful and important novel from a magnificently talented debut writer. Murphy’s haunting exploration of love, longing and the ways we push people away even when we need them the most will stay with me for a very long time. Dr Natasha Bell, author, editor, Faber Academy tutor
Bio: Rebecca Murphy is a writer from Cork, living in Wicklow with her wife and two dogs. Blood and Water is her debut novel. She was the winner of the RTÉ Today Show novel competition and the recipient of a Faber Academy Scholarship. Her influences range from Anne Enright to Stephen King, via Maeve Binchy. She has a degree in Drama and English from UCC.