Shortlisted inn the Hot Press reader's poll for best book of the year, The Rachel Incident is Caroline O'Donoghue's debut adult novel and it's a blistering coming of age tale following a young Cork student in the early 2010s.

At 21 years old, our heroine Rachel Murray is infatuated with her housemate and best friend James, and their life revolving around working in a bookshop, nights out in the Bróg and attending the occasional lecture in UCC.

However the pair's bourgeoning relationship with Rachel's married English professor Dr Byrne. and his wife Deenie Harrington complicates matters, and over the course of a year at the height of the recession the four characters lives become more and more deeply entangled.

Tensions rise and a shocking secret threatens everything James and Rachel hold dear in Caroline O'Donoghue's extraordinary novel.

Speaking about the novel in her Hot Press interview, the Cork writer tells of how that era effected the book's approach to sexuality:

"When I think about 2009, the only people who were ‘out’ were those who didn’t have the ability to mask it. It was definitely seen as shameful. I remember hearing about the loneliness of queer life. Lots of people tried to stay in the closet as a result".

Watch Caroline O'Donoghue's 'My Reading of It' of her sixth novel The Rachel Incident below: