To be published by New Island Books on 14 Feb 2025, Frogs for Watchdogs tells the story of a wild child with a ferocious imagination will stop at nothing to protect his family. After years of moving from place to place, a young family finds shelter in an isolated house in the Irish countryside. Their father is missing, Mum is a healer and B a formidable big sister. In his strange new territory, a wild little boy gives voice to his experience. Jerry Drain, a local famer, is stealing hay from the barn, someone is making nasty phone calls to the house at night and darkness is gathering at the edges of their lives. With his ferocious imagination the boy will do everything in his power to protect his family. But Jerry will not go away and Mum seems to be falling under his spell. It will be a year of major wins and baffling defeats for the boy, as Jerry’s true nature insists on revealing itself. Dark, funny, tender and raw, Frogs for Watchdogs thrums with the intensity of childhood. Above all, it is an ode to the blended family: the bewildering joy, wary safety and profound new bonds of love.

Praise for Frogs for Watchdogs

“I can't remember the last time I was so caught up in a book. The boy is an utterly beguiling narrator. It is rare to read such a convincing child's voice, and rarer still to see the world through his eyes in such an intense, visceral way. for Jerry Drain's patience and dignity slayed me. This is a very special novel.”

Louise Kennedy

“A beautiful novel. The first three quarters is laden with tension and dread but this dense foreboding lightens and lifts towards the closing sections as we stand back from the story and witness, with growing joy, a wonderful, ineluctable slide towards love. I love the unforced narrative voice and its gorgeous contortions and confections; his innocent yet curiously ancient-feeling observations on the land around him and the people in it. A stunning novel that will live long in my imagination.”

Donal Ryan

“This book felled me. Woven through with stunning sensory impressions, the voice is thoroughly original and devastating. Seán Farrell captures the burden the young carry; their vigilance in a time of lost fathers, lost footing, and lost language. I loved every character: displaced, marginalised and broken – they save one another. This is a beautiful novel, painfully yearning, mysterious, and tender. I couldn’t put it down. Brilliant.”

Una Mannion

“An enthralling novel, and a remarkable imaginative feat – the narrative voice is wholly convincing, and utterly compelling. Seán Farrell is a magical writer, and his name is one to conjure with.”

John Banville