“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”
Emma Donoghue is one of those authors whose books linger long after turned the final page on one of her books. Best known for her bestseller Room, her work spans literary fiction, historical novels, and emotionally intense character studies, which can make working out where to begin a little overwhelming. If you’re wondering which of her novels are worth reading first, or how her books compare to each other, this guide has you covered. Today at What We Reading, we’re breaking down the best Emma Donoghue books in order, ranking her most acclaimed novels whilst also considering accessibility for newer readers. Whether it’s the perfect introduction, books similar to Room, or revisiting her backlist, we’re here to help you decide which Emma Donoghue book to read next.
Room (2010)
Where else could we begin a list of the best Emma Donoghue books than with her global bestseller, Room? To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It’s where he was born and grew up, it’s where he lives with his Ma. At night, Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But, she devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
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Hood (1995)
Emma Donoghue’s debut novel, Hood, is a tale of grief and lust, frustration and hilarity, death and family. Penelope O’Grady and Cara Wall are risking disaster when, like teenagers in any intolerant time and place – here, a Dublin convent school in the late ‘70s – they fall in love. Yet Cara, the free spirit, and Pen, the stoic, craft a bond so strong it seems as though nothing could sever it: not the bickering, not the secrets, not even Cara’s infidelities.
But, thirteen years on, a car crash kills Cara and rips the lid off Pen’s world. Pen is still in the closet, teaching at her old school, living under the roof of Cara’s gentle father, who thinks of her as his daughter’s friend. Over the span of one surreal week of bereavement, she is battered by memories that range from humiliating to the exalted, to the erotic, to the funny. It will take Pen all her intelligence and wit to sort through her tumultuous past with Cara, and all the nerves she can muster to begin remaking her life.
The Pull Of The Stars (2020)
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders – Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over the span of three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow manage their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
The Wonder (2016)
Lib Wright, a young English nurse, arrives in an impoverished Irish village on a strange mission. Eleven-year-old Anna O’Donnell is said to have eaten nothing for months, yet appears to be thriving miraculously.
An educated sceptic, Lib expects to expose a hoax straight away. But as she gets to know the girl, she becomes more and more unsure. Is Anna a fraud, or a ‘living wonder’? Or is something more sinister unfolding right before Lib’s eyes? Written with all the propulsive tension of a book like Room, The Wonder asks what lengths we would go to for the love of a child.
Frog Music (2014)
Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny’s murderer to justice – if he doesn’t track her down first.
The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It’s the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law each morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frog she hunts.
Slammerkin (2001)
Mary Saunders, a lower-class London schoolgirl, was born into rough cloth but hungered for lace and the trappings of a higher station than her family would ever know. In eighteenth-century England, Mary’s shrewd instincts will get her only so far, and she despairs of the plans made for her to carve out a trade as a seamstress or a maid.
Unwilling to bend to such a destiny, Mary strikes out on a painful, fateful journey all her own. Inspired by the obscure historical figure Mary Saunders, Slammerkin is another one of Emma Donoghue’s best works for anyone looking for a fresh, provocative tale exploring a young girl’s quest for freedom and a better life.
Akin (2019)
Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France. He is days away from his first visit to Nice since he was a child, bringing with him a handful of puzzling photos from his mother’s wartime years. But he receives a call from social services: Noah is the closest living relative of an eleven-year-old great-nephew he’s never, who urgently needs someone to look after him. Noah agrees to take Michael along on his trip.
Much has changed in this famously charming seaside mecca, still haunted by the memories of Nazi occupation. The unlikely duo, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, bicker about everything from steak frites to screen time. But Noah soon comes to appreciate the boy’s truculent wit, and Michael’s ease with tech and a sharp eye help Noah unearth troubling details about the family’s past. Both come to grasp the risks people in all eras have run for their loved ones, and find they are more akin than they knew.
Haven (2022)
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt had a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks – young Trian and old Cormac – he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. In such a place, what will survival mean?
Three men vow to leave the world behind them. They set out in a small boat for an island their leader had seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them. What they find is the extraordinary island now known as Skellig Michael. Another one of the best Emma Donoghue novels, Haven marries exquisite worldbuilding with psychological intensity, making for a seriously compelling read.
The Paris Express (2025)
Based on a 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from the likes of Brittany, Ireland, Russia, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl might be dying; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.
The Paris Express is a new Emma Donoghue book and an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the nineteenth century.
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Learned By Heart (2023)
In 1805, fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine is a schoolgirl at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was banished to this unfamiliar country as a little girl. When she first stepped off the King George in Kent, Eliza was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, but now she boards alone at the Manor, with no one left to claim her.
She spends her days avoiding the attention of fellow pupils until one day, a fearless and charismatic new student arrives at the school. The two girls are immediately thrown together, and soon Eliza’s life is upended by this strange and curious young woman. Learned by Heart tells the heartbreaking story of the tangled lives of two women whose intense, and unlikely, relationship will change them forever.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
