Book Club / Author event with Wendy Erskine discussing THE BENEFACTORS with Appetite Book Club members

The event ticket is £16 which includes the book, the event, a cuppa and a biscuit. This event is held offsite at a wheelchair accessible COLCHESTER ARTS SCENTRE

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2025

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE

What a beautiful, hilarious blast of brilliance (Donal Ryan, author of Heart, Be at Peace)

Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to eighteen-year-old boys. Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances.

Bronagh, the CEO of a children’s services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they’ll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed.

Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, multi-voice presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland.