AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2025

‘What a joy it is to read‘
Michael Magee, author of Close to Home

‘I couldn’t put this book down‘
Sheena Patel, author of I’m A Fan

‘Powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling‘
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13

‘A prodigiously talented author: funny and brutal by turns‘
Guardian

‘The style of Woolf but the heart of Dickens‘
Sunday Times

‘Vital reading‘
Spectator

‘I miss it already . . . What a beautiful, hilarious blast of brilliance‘
Donal Ryan, author of Heart, Be at Peace

‘A cast of characters so vividly drawn it feels like you’ve known them all your life‘
Colin Walsh, author of Kala

Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to eighteen-year-old boys.

Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children’s services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they’ll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed.

Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, multi-voice presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.

Author Biography

Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. She edited the art anthology well I just kind of like it. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is a frequent broadcaster and interviewer, and works as a secondary school teacher in Belfast. The Benefactors is her debut novel.

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