IrishCentral Book of the Month "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue

"The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue is the May 2025 selection for the IrishCentral Book Club.

Each month, we will pick a new Irish book or a great book by an Irish author and celebrate the amazing ability of the Irish to tell a good story for the IrishCentral Book Club.

This month's selection is "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue, a native of Co Cork. 

In February, Channel 4 in the UK announced that it would be adapting the international bestseller into an eight-part series, produced by the award-winning Element Pictures.

Channel 4 said: "' The Rachel Incident' is aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humour about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three…"

Commenting on the adaptation, O'Donoghue said: “Like most authors, I’ve always dreamed of having my work adapted for the screen, but never could have imagined a situation as dreamy as this.

"Channel 4 and Element have, between them, created some of the best relationship dramas on TV and I know they’ll do the same for Rachel.

"NBCUniversal have been stalwart collaborators since long before the book was even published, and I’m so grateful to them for setting me up with Jen Statsky, who has been an incredible mentor to me as I embark on my first show.

"I’m incredibly lucky.”

Synopsis of "The Rachel Incident"

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. 

Reviews of "The Rachel Incident"

"Hilarious, wise and wonderfully written" - Graham Norton

“Exuberant, bitingly satirical….Recalls the fiction of both Sally Rooney and Anne Tyler as the author interrogates the dynamics of power, from academia to publishing houses to bedrooms….O’Donoghue steers us toward reckonings large and small, her hand steady on the tiller….A gratifying, accomplished novel.” - Hamilton Cain, The New York Times

“O’Donoghue [has] got my full attention….The Rachel Incident offers a tender reflection on those 20-something friendships that leave a permanent imprint….One of the many lovable things about this novel is O’Donoghue’s kindhearted perspective on the awkwardness of the college years….Profoundly satisfying….O’Donoghue has found a way to tell this story in scenes both heartbreaking and funny. She illuminates these Irish lives with a light all her own.” - Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Who knew the financial crisis could be so … fun? Don’t get me wrong, The Rachel Incident gets into some heavy themes – class, sexual identity, abortion, to name a few – but this book navigates a young Irishwoman’s chaotic early 20s, during a specific economic moment, with a cozy warmth that had me laughing out loud throughout. This is one of those catch-yourself-smiling-without-realizing-it books – and one I think I’ll go back to, the next time I just want to feel like it’s all going to be OK.” - Miles Parks, NPR

About Caroline O'Donoghue

Caroline O’Donoghue is a novelist, podcaster, and screenwriter. "All Our Hidden Gifts," her fantasy series for Young Adults, is a New York Times bestseller and "The Rachel Incident" is being adapted for television by Universal Studios and Channel 4. Caroline’s podcast "Sentimental Garbage" charts internationally and has acquired over 11.5 million downloads worldwide. She was born in Cork, Ireland and currently lives in London. "The Rachel Incident" is her first adult novel to be published in the US.