Book Review: Trespassers and Other Stories by Áine Greaney

Hello again, fellow readers! On April 5, I shared the details about author Áine Greaney’s new short story collection, Trespassers and Other Stories, and wrote about a time and place where I personally struggled to fit into a new environment. Today I’m back to share my thoughts after reading the book in support of her participation in WOW’s Blog Tours.

Book Summary

From coastal Massachusetts to rural Ireland, the characters in Trespassers struggle to reconcile past and present, place and displacement, loss and hope.

A woman travels from her Massachusetts home to her native Irish village to care for her estranged and sick father. Back in her childhood home, she comes face-to-face with previously unspoken losses.

A wealthy couple travels to Cape Cod to spend their 52nd summer on the wife’s ancestral estate. On their private beach above Nantucket Sound, the husband must confront the realities of their long marriage and its social-class tensions.

An Irish immigrant takes her American-born teen to a raucous Boston house party. At that party, the teenager discovers that her mother had lied about her child’s birth father—a lie that will permanently divide the mother and daughter.

PUBLISHER: Sea Crow Press

ISBN-10: 1961864207

ISBN-13  978-1961864207

Print Length: 130 pages

Purchase a copy of Trespassers and Other Stories on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

About the Author

An Irish native, Áine Greaney now lives and writes in the Boston area. In addition to her five published books, her short works have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Salon, Another Chicago Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times, Books Ireland, NPR/WBUR and other publications. 

As well as being an author, Greaney is a trained teacher who has designed and led fiction and non-fiction workshops, presentations and keynotes for regional, national and international organizations.

Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, cited in Best American Essays and named a ‘Great Group Read’ by the Women’s National Book Association.

You can find her online at:

Website: https://www.ainegreaney.com

Instagram: ainegreaney

Bluesky: ainegreaney.bsky

Facebook: Aine Greaney, Writer

Threads: ainegreaney

Book Review:

While I write short stories and enjoy the art form, I’ve never personally tried to put together my own collection. When I got the opportunity to read Trespassers and Other Stories by Áine Greaney, I was eager to immerse myself in the pages.

Most of what I read for pleasure is fiction, and it was refreshing to take in the genre in smaller, curated selections. Each story brought a new setting, a different set of characters, and most of all, a fresh perspective, all while sharing the underlying theme of how each character uniquely fits into their world.

There’s Sarah, the young Irish woman who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand in “Twelve Weeks.” It was easy to put myself in the shoes of this character, living in the unfamiliar world of Cape Cod on a summer work Visa, with little resources or support, on top of being isolated on a literal island off the coast of Massachusetts.

My heart broke for Audrey, a woman who thinks she’s marrying into a life of comfort and privilege with her successful husband, but instead enters a world where’s she’s belittled constantly and unable to make a move without his permission. In “House Devil,” Greaney expertly shares how a person can find themselves trapped in such a situation but gives the reader the ultimate satisfaction when Audrey devises a clever plan to expose Alfonsus for who he really is.

In “Man on the Train,” a nurse named Lorna contemplates her life choices when a man strikes up a conversation with her while she’s heading to work:

In America in this foreign country, I’m the wasting-away spinster, Lorna thinks now, as they drive past a white Colonial house with a red front door. I’m a 38-year-old Miss Havisham who, when I’m not working my nocturnal shifts, I’m sitting in my seaside guest room pining for my man.

“The Granny Flat” brings a surprise when Margaret, who lives in her daughter and son-in-law’s garage apartment, sets out to investigate what is making strange noises through the walls late at night.

Each of the 11 stories brought a fresh surprise, full of longing, regret, and an exploration of interpersonal relationships and family ties that kept me turning the pages until the end.