Blood and Water

Susan arrives on Dune Island with a plan, settle her late uncle’s estate, sign the papers, and leave within a week. The inheritance is simple, a weathered cottage, a small distillery, a stubborn dog named Walter.  On paper, nothing she couldn''t sort in a week.

Except Susan isn’t just there to close a chapter. She’s running, from Jen, from a loss she cannot yet name, and from a life that has quietly unravelled.

But Dune Island has been keeping its own secrets.

Cut off on the edge of the Wild Atlantic Way, where the ferry runs on Mick’s time and every glance carries a question, Susan begins to uncover what her uncle Frank left behind, not just property, but a lifetime of silence. And the longer she stays, the more the island reveals, buried stories, unspoken grief, a family history shaped as much by what was hidden as by what was known.

And as the past begins to surface, Susan must confront the truths she came to escape.

She came to Dune Island to be alone. The island had other ideas.

Blood and Water is a haunting, beautifully observed novel about identity, inheritance, and the quiet devastations that echo through generations. With warmth, wit, and emotional precision, Rebecca Murphy introduces a striking new voice in fiction, one that lingers long after the final page.

Winner of the RTÉ Today Show Novel Competition