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Joseph O'Connor

Biography

Joseph O'Connor

Joseph O’Connor’s STAR OF THE SEA was an international bestseller, a New York Times, Economist Notable Book of the Year and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller. It won France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, the Irish Post Award for Fiction, the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, an American Library Association Award, the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Hall of Fame Award, and the Prix Litteraire Zepter for European Novel of the Year. He is the author of nine novels and is the Inaugural Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. SHADOWPLAY was named Novel of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards and was a finalist for the prestigious Costa Book Award.

Joseph O'Connor

Books by Joseph O'Connor

by Joseph O'Connor - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In the final months of World War II, a clandestine group known as The Choir successfully smuggles thousands of escapees out of Nazi-occupied Rome via a secret route known as the Escape Line. When an unidentified airman falls wounded from the sky, The Choir is plunged into danger, and the survival of the Escape Line itself is threatened. The Escape Line’s collapse would leave thousands stranded. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, its architect and the acknowledged leader of The Choir, broods inside the Vatican, paralyzed by the perils of keeping his Roman underground railroad functioning. Meanwhile, SS Commander Paul Hauptmann has been tasked with destroying the entire operation, and the price of failure is high --- his wife and children are under Gestapo lock-and-key in Berlin.

by Joseph O'Connor - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

September 1943: German forces have Rome under their control. Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann rules over the Eternal City with vicious efficiency. Hunger is widespread. Rumors fester. The war’s outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, Jews and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City, a neutral, independent state nestled in the city of Rome. A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into a deadly battle of wits as they attempt to aid those seeking refuge. MY FATHER'S HOUSE is inspired by the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who, together with his accomplices, risked his life to smuggle thousands out of occupied Rome right under the nose of his Nazi nemesis.