Fintra beach near Donegal, Ireland. Photograph: Andreas Berthold/Alamy Garrett Carr’s debut novel for adults begins in an accomplished storyteller’s hypnotic style. “We were a hardy people, raised facing the Atlantic. A few thousand men, women and children clinging to the coast and trying to stay dry. Our town wasn’t just a town, it was logic and a fate.” The first person plural pulls the reader in, makes us feel a part of the tale.