Service

A gripping, fiercely intelligent dissection of consent and assault, Service revolves around a disgraced chef at a high-end Dublin restaurant and the employee forced to reckon with the traumas of the past.

When Hannah learns that famed chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to the summer she spent waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant - the plush splendour of the dining rooms, the wild parties after service, the sizzling tension of the kitchens. But Hannah also remembers how the attention from Daniel soon morphed from kindness into something darker.

Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel is faced with the reality of a courtroom. His wife Julie is hiding from paparazzi lenses behind the bedroom curtains. Surrounded by the wreckage of the past, Daniel, Julie and Hannah must reconsider what happened at the restaurant. Their three different voices reveal a story of power and complicity, the lies we tell and the courage it takes to face the truth.

A book guaranteed to get people talking... a big topic requiring care, and Gilmartin tackles it with aplomb... both chewy and meaty fare, rare and well done - John Self, Irish Times

The exhausting and exhilarating life of a high-end restaurant is beautifully recreated in this masterful novel . . . deeply satisfying . . . A writer correctly confident in her recipe - Emma Healey, Irish Independent

This coolly furious dissection of sexual assault and its aftermath is as carefully constructed as anything served up in the Michelin-starred restaurant run by the chef whose alleged behaviour sets the novel in motion... compelling - Marie Claire