Cork festival planner goes from events about books to one of her own 

SARA O’Donovan, marketing manager with West Cork Music and manager of the West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry, has plenty of experience organising events about books and is now launching one of her own.

The Clonakilty resident launches her novel Within You, Without You in Bantry Bookshop today.

Set in Yorkshire, Liverpool, Sussex and Cork, Within You, Without You is a Sliding Doors-style story about Kathryn, who thinks she has seen her first boyfriend Ed on the side of the road on a dark and stormy night.

However, someone doesn’t just reappear like that. Not when they died 20 years ago.

Uncovering long-buried memories of first love and its devastating loss, she returns to her past to try and rewrite her present, discovering that reality isn’t what she had been led to believe.

The author says that it is thanks to her role in the much-loved literary festival that she came to write her debut novel.

“A number of years ago, I freelanced as an equestrian journalist and wrote a book called Horses of Cork before turning my hand to fiction,” she said.

“I met an editor at the West Cork Literary Festival who encouraged me to develop a recurring thought I’d had and that thought became the opening of Within You, Without You.”

Sara’s background is in racing and show- jumping. She grew up on the south coast of England where her parents – her father is a former jump jockey who comes from Leap - worked for a racehorse trainer.

An English degree was followed by a year as racing secretary with the Queen’s trainer before she moved to Ireland.

Within You, Without You is available from Valley Press (valleypressuk.com), local bookshops and Amazon.