Old Romantics published by Tramp Press in April 2024 is described as “a collection of alternative romances told from a netherworld of love and disenchantment”. The stories follow the interior biography of an indistinct Dublin woman, from early adulthood into motherhood and the trials of young family life right up to the pandemic.

“Whether a catastrophic road trip, an ill-advised career move or a sinister encounter on the beach, these stories dig at the heart of what it is to be alone and alienated in your world” the publisher said. “The heroes of these escapades are thickly masked and often unreliable as they pursue each other. Love is sometimes obsessive and often delusional. Motivations are slippery, expectations are shattered, and self-knowledge is hard-won yet inevitable.”

Lisa Coen of Tramp Press added: “Old Romantics is a collection of witty and acutely observed stories from an astonishing new talent. Slippery, observant and flawed, Maggie Armstrong’s narrators navigate a world of awkward expectation and latent hostility. From bad dates that call to mind an Irish ‘Cat Person’ by Kristen Roupenian, to comically observed workplace absurdity, Maggie Armstrong is a powerful new voice in Irish fiction and we are honoured to get to work with her.”

Praise for Old Romantics

“Armstrong is an audacious writer yet controlled. Her comic instincts are sharp. As for the prose, you could bathe in it. The details, the clever turns of phrase. ..Old Romantics has a personality of its own. No doubt readers will be smitten by its charms”

The Irish Times

“Hers is a distinctive new voice, and I am keen to see what she will write next”

The Irish Examiner

'Hideously entertaining'

Image Magazine

“Old Romantics is somehow both elegant and fiery. Maggie Armstrong's Dublin is full of surprises. An excellent debut.”

Nicole Flattery

“I remember reading Maggie Armstrong for the first time and thinking: I need to read everything this woman ever writes. Her stories are funny, wry, dark and brilliant. They scoop up a familiar world and serve it back to the reader defamiliarised, strange, off-kilter, but all the more real for that. She is sui generis, the kind of writer Viktor Shklovsky might have had in mind when he said that art exists 'to make one feel things, to make the stone stony'. The publication of Old Romantics is a major event, the first book by a major writer.”

Cathy Sweeney

“A feast of edgy, vivid, compelling writing from a storyteller of unique voice and rare skills.”

Joseph O'Connor

“Funny and awkward and honest and perceptive and shrewd ... a very exciting new voice in Irish fiction”

Louise O’Neill

“This collection is a high-wire balancing act; simmering menace juxtaposed with sardonic comedy and razor-sharp self-awareness. Unmissable.”

Sophie White