Luke Cassidy is a writer from the Irish border town of Dundalk. His debut novel, Iron Annie, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. He has been published in the Irish Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Literary Hub, and LA Review of Books, amongst others. He has recently contributed a short story to the New Island Books anthology of writing from the Irish border region, The New Frontier, and adapted Iron Annie for the stage, which toured Ireland in late 2021 and will have more dates in Ireland in the UK in Summer 2022.

Mixing Thelma and Louise and Lisa McInerney's The Glorious Heresies, with a dash of Pulp Fiction, Iron Annie heralds the arrival of a major new Irish writer.

Iron Annie comes garlanded with pre-publication endorsements from many British and Irish writers, and a major publication deal with Vintage USA

I still think'a her every day, several times a day.Aoife knows everyone in Dundalk's underworld. Too well, in some cases. But when she meets Annie, a beautiful whirlwind of a woman, and brings her to the Town, she finds that she doesn't know nearly enough about her. Annie is magnetic and wild and Aoife's desire to learn more quickly becomes a need, and then an obsession - to know this dangerous woman, to love her, to keep her. So when Aoife's friend and collaborator the Rat King asks her to help him dispose of ten kilos of cocaine, swiped from a rival, she brings Annie along for a road trip through a Britain that she only knows as a place to be suspicious of. So when Annie decides she doesn't want to return to Ireland, Aoife makes a decision that changes everything.Gritty and yet tender, tragic and yet hopeful, Iron Annie is a breakneck journey that crackles with energy, warmth and heart, and marks the arrival of a fresh and vibrant new voice in literary fiction.