About Me
My Bio
Having spent the majority of his teens and twenties wondering just what would become of him, Simon chanced upon a hitherto unrealised ability to write. This ability, limited as it was, compelled him to enrol as a mature student of Journalism at the University of Limerick. His dreams of super-stardom were almost immediately curtailed by a punishing, unexplained illness which took away three years of his life but perversely, enabled him to write his debut novel 'And the birds kept on singing'. Those were dark, depressing years but in spite of the toll they took on him, Simon understands were it not for that illness he may never have fully embraced his desire to become an author. He has since completed his degree leading him to a job with the Wexford People. In February 2024 he released his second novel, A Place Without Pain.
A Place Without Pain
Aidan Collins has always been an outsider, a weirdo, an oddball. But the arrival of his worldly, urbane cousin Dan, changes his life completely. Dan introduces Aidan to alcohol, to girls, to a life beyond the four walls of his bedroom, and eventually, to the night out to end all nights out in Dublin.
What he sees in the capital, what he's exposed to, also changes Aidan's life, but not in a good way. A scene behind a closed door haunts him, torments him, leaving behind scars which may never heal.
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And the birds kept on singing
January 26, 2017
Pregnant at seventeen, Sinéad McLoughlin does the only thing she can; she runs away from home. She will go to England and put her child up for adoption. But when she lays eyes on it for the first time, lays eyes on him, she knows she can never let him go.
Just one problem. He’s already been promised to someone else.
A tale of love and loss, remorse and redemption, And the birds kept on singing tells two stories, both about the same boy. In one Sinéad keeps her son and returns home to her parents, to nineteen-eighties Ireland and life as a single mother. In the other she gives him away, to the Philliskirks, Malcolm and Margaret, knowing that they can give him the kind of life she never could.
As her son progresses through childhood and becomes a young man, Sinéad is forced to face the consequences of her decision. Did she do the right thing? Should she have kept him, or given him away? And will she spend the rest of her life regretting the choices she has made?
Praise for A Place Without Pain
"In his rich, stark, and moving second novel Simon Bourke brings to life Aidan Collins' private world and the harsh milieu he inhabits. A Place Without Pain is an imaginative recounting of a young man's struggle with his demons and his efforts over a decade to overcome them. At every step, Bourke draws us into empathy with Collins as we will him to succeed against the odds he faces. In its rural and small-town settings, the novel calls to mind the work of Alan Warner and Patrick McCabe. A Place Without Pain is a fine achievement."
Eamonn Wall author of My Aunts at Twilight Poker (Salmon Poetry, 2023)
"With merciless precision Simon Bourke traces the comings and goings of his malfunctioning, pill-popping, hard-drinking, lonely narrator (Holden Caulfield -meets- Luke Rhinehart) as he stumbles from one self-made catastrophic, crisis to the next. A tragic/comic devilish hymn to the left behind."
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Billy Roche, The Wexford Trilogy
Praise for And the Birds Kept on Singing
"A brave and admirably ambitious first novel, full of heart and emotion" - Joseph O'Connor
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"Funny, insightful, immensely sad in places, nostalgic, thought-provoking and entertaining. Bourke's characterisations are masterful and I am ready to devour whatever he writes next" - The TBR Pile
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"powerful, moving and has an amazing sense of realism" - What Cathy Read Next
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"An enlightening look at a fairly recent past told with a range of emotions and spell-binding for the force of the characters, And the Birds Kept on Singing is one powerful debut novel," - Cleopatra Loves Books
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Contact
Get in touch with me for more information about my previous publications, upcoming releases or any other queries.