FICTION:That Gallagher Girl, By KateThompson, Avon, 394pp. £11.99

THE ACTOR TURNED novelist Kate Thompson returns to the fictional village of Lissamore, in the west of Ireland, to set her latest novel, That Gallagher Girl. The story revolves around three main characters, two of whom will be familiar to Thompson fans from previous work.

Cat Gallagher is the 19-year-old homeless daughter of an internationally renowned artist, Hugo Gallagher. Rio Kinsella is a local single mother who still loves the father of her grown-up son, now a leading actor in Los Angeles. Keeley Considine is a Dublin-based journalist who is having an affair with her boss when the story opens.

Thompson eases us into the world of the three characters, and it’s not at first clear why she singles out Cat Gallagher for the book’s title. Cat eeks out a living breaking into empty holiday homes while trying to touch her alcoholic father for financial handouts. Years earlier, Cat’s mother died and her father remarried. Firey and dyslexic, Cat fell through cracks in the educational system. Her stepmother, Ophelia, didn’t want Cat around. Very soon Cat didn’t want to be around, either. So she disappeared. When the story opens Cat is living on the edge of society.

Meanwhile, Rio Kinsella is helping prepare accomodation for her good friend Adair, a Celtic Tiger casualty who is downsizing and returning to Lissamore. Rio hears from Adair’s grown daughter that Adair has a year to live and is returning to fulfill his dream of setting up an oyster farm and asking the woman he loves to marry him. That woman is Rio. Though Rio’s heart belongs elsewhere, she decides to give up a year of her life for a friend who wants to live out his dream. Days before they are due to marry Rio hears that her one true love is returning.

Over dinner at the Trocadero Keeley Considine is talking (and planning) sex with her married boss when they are joined by his wife. Keeley decides to leave the Sunday newspaper where they work and take stock, in the village of Lissamore, where she has inherited a cottage (and property tax) from her grandmother. Keeley works out her notice by interviewing local celebrities. Here she stumbles on a secret that directly affects Cat.

From the start Thompson is in control of her characters, taking them along at a gentle pace, never rushing. We get to know them slowly, the way, in life, we get to know each other. These are three-dimensional people, especially Cat, who is a complex mix of naive and street smart. By the end of the book we understand why she deserves to have the book named after her. She is the real heroine here, the person who, in the end, has the guts to do her own thing, to be true to herself.

The ending is the best part of That Gallagher Girl. Thompson is in no rush to tie up happy, predictable knots. She allows her characters to breathe until the end. We do leave them happy but realistically so, their happiness the result of them being true to themselves, the very real people that Thompson has created.

Denise Deegan is author of four novels. Her next book, And By the Way, the first of a series, is published later this month by Hachette Ireland