Five Days on Ballyboy Beach by David J.O' Brien Spotlight!

A startling revelation - the long-time friend you never viewed romantically is actually the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.
But what do you do about it?
For Derek, a laid-back graduate camping with college friends on Ireland's west coast in the summer of 1996, the answer is … absolutely nothing.
Never the proactive one of the group - he's more than happy to watch his friends surf, canoe and scuba-dive from the shore - Derek adopts a wait and see attitude. Acting on his emotional discovery is further hindered by the fact he's currently seeing someone else - and she's coming to join him for the weekend.
As their five days on the beach pass, and there are more revelations, Derek soon realises that to get what he desires, he'll have to take it. Events conspire to push him to the forefront of the group, and, as unexpected sorrow begins to surround him and his friends, Derek grasps his chance at happiness. After all, isn’t life too short to just wait and see?

10% of the author's royalties will be donated to WWF, the World Wildlife Fund.

David J O'Brien was born and raised in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. He studied environmental biology and later studied deer biology for his PhD, at University College Dublin. Instead of pursuing his life-long interest in wolves and predator-prey interactions, after completing his doctorate, he taught English in Madrid, Spain, for four years while his girlfriend finished her doctorate in molecular biology. They married and moved to Boston, USA, so his wife could pursue her career and David decided that teaching was a vocation he was happy to continue. After seven great years teaching Biology at Boston's Cathedral High School and Zoology at Bridgewater State College, he returned to Spain three years ago so his wife could set up her new research group in her hometown of Pamplona shortly before their daughter was born.
David has loved writing since his teens. He began with poetry and had one of his first poems published in Cadenza, a small Dublin poetry magazine at the age of fourteen. Since then several more have been published in journals and anthologies such as Albatross, The Tennessee State Poetry League, Poems of Nature and various anthologies of Forward Press imprint in Britain. He began writing fiction soon after and wrote the novella that would later become Leaving The Pack at the age of seventeen. Though his academic writing took precedence for a number of years, and he is still involved in deer biology and management, he kept writing other things in his spare time and has always dreamt of one day being able to do it full time. While living in Madrid, he wrote some non-fiction articles for the Magazine Hot English and while in Boston for the newspaper Dig. There, too, he took a feature-writing class in Emmanuel College he was awarded as thanks for mentoring a student teacher.
An avid wildlife enthusiast and ecologist, much of David's non-academic writing, especially poetry, is inspired by wildlife and science, and he sometimes seeks to describe the science behind the supernatural. He has written a little bit of everything: to date a four-act play, a six-episode sit-com, various short stories and four more novels.
After two more years teaching English and science in a secondary school, David recently moved to a private teaching academy to develop their English program. This has not only given him more time with his daughter and enjoy Pamplona and its surroundings, but also allowed him to finally devote time to fully developing his writing career.
He is currently working on a long novel set in the pre-Columbian Caribbean, and a non-fiction book about the sociology of hunting. At the same time he is looking for outlets for his other works: two contemporary adult novels; one set in the west of Ireland and the other set in Madrid, a young adult ghost story set in a town outside London, and a children's novel about a boy who can see leprechauns.

My Thoughts

I have been promising the author a review for this book for quite awhile now and for that I apologize. With that said Five Days on Ballyboy Beach is about a group of friends who congegrate at the beach for their get together camping trip. The protagonist is Derek, who is reputed to be a lady's man. He currently has a girlfriend who he wants to break up with because he is attracted to another woman. He has always liked her but never acted on it.

The days on Ballyboy beach are filled with surfing, relaxing, eating and drinking at the local pubs. Of course Derek does a lot of inner contemplating about his situation. There are secrets to be had, some come out in the open and some don't. Everyone basically gets along with each other so everyone seems to have a great time. There is a lot of discussions regarding destiny, their current jobs/school, are they happy with what they are doing, how do they see their future pan out, all the things that 20 something adults focus on at one time or other. The story takes an unexpected turn when tragedy strikes and puts into perspective just how fragile life really is.

I enjoyed this book and thought the author did a fine job in fleshing out the characters. Plus the fact that the story took place in Ireland made the book interesting for me.

Thank you to the author for a copy of the book for review and I was not monetarily compensated for my review.



Go here to Tirgearr Publishing to read an excerpt