Guard Your Heart is available from independent bookstores, major book retailers and online.
It won the Great Reads Award (Ireland) and was shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Award.
Please support local if you can.
I’d love you to support my local independent bookstore ‘Little Acorns’ in Derry (or your own local independent bookstore) if you’re buying the book.
“Many of the scenes are hauntingly raw and realistic and have the reader on tenterhooks yet the author manages to include just enough comedy to keep the pace and prevent too much heartache. This really is an excellent piece of fiction and one which will hopefully introduce many readers to a side of Ireland which is often heavily edited for British audiences.”
—Steph Hanlon
Derry. Summer 2016.
Aidan and Iona, 18, were both born on the day of the Northern Ireland peace deal in 1998.
Aidan is Catholic, Irish and Republican. With his father gone, his mother dead and his brother becoming increasingly radicalized, Aidan’s hope is pinned on exam results earning him a one-way ticket out of Derry. To anywhere.
Iona, Protestant and British, has family connections with the police. She’s got university ambitions and a fervent belief that boys without one track minds are a myth.
Both their fathers held guns, but safer to keep that secret for now.
When the two meet, alone and on neutral territory, there is a spark that neither of them can ignore, but the differences between them seem insurmountable.
Despite the gulf between them and the secrets they have to keep from each other, the feelings between them grow. And so what? It’s not the Troubles. But for both Iona and Aidan, it seems like everything is keeping them apart, when all they want is to be together...
Thank-you for your interest in Guard Your Heart.
That means a lot. I grew up in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’. Blessed with amazing parents, I learned that bridges could be crossed and that all people mattered. At eighteen, I studied European Studies in England and France. Then came a critical decision. Would I go back to Northern Ireland? I decided to give it one last chance – with a secret condition attached. In my heart, I would only stay if I could help to build peace.
Some doors opened. In Belfast, I qualified to teach History and Politics. The following year, 1998, I moved to Derry to gain a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies. I remember the feeling of pure joy when the ‘Good Friday’ peace deal was signed. The deal marked the end, to a large extent, of violent conflict here. Put another way, it changed how conflict happened – moving it from violent to non-violent, guns to democracy. What it didn’t do overnight was to build peace.
‘Profoundly powerful, subtle and effective’
—The Guardian
‘Outstanding’
—Irish Examiner
There are many brilliant novels set during The Troubles, but teenagers today weren’t born then.
I wrote Guard Your Heart to show Northern Ireland one hundred years after violent events which formed it and a generation after peace. Society has changed – but we are still on a journey. Aidan and Iona, 18, were both born on the day of the Northern Irish peace deal, but they live in a society where identity is still tattooed under your skin, in your blood. They live in the legacy of the Troubles. The complexity of peace. What if peace is harder than war?
Often Northern Ireland is explained in simple terms - ‘It’s about Catholics and Protestants…’ When it’s put like that, it’s easy to think ‘Why don’t they just get over it?’ The truth is much more complicated. Religion is just the simplest label for complex political, historical, cultural, human rights and identity issues. Similar issues are found in communities and countries worldwide. Sectarianism in Northern Ireland is a form of racism. Political tension is a colonial legacy. Prejudice, grief, radicalisation, faith, hope, battling against circumstances – these are universal challenges and themes. Big questions explored in the book resonate elsewhere. Can teenagers escape identity conflicts inherited from their parents? How do poverty and marginalisation impact a teenager’s life choices? What empowers a new generation to move forward into a shared society?
‘A deeply affecting, powerful book’
—Irish Independent
The novel is a Romeo and Juliet, a love story across divides. It’s fiction, but the context is real.
Guard Your Heart was inspired by the desire to tug hearts and minds into empathising that wherever it takes place, and in whatever form, reconciliation can be a fragile process. A courageous risk.
2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the Partition of Ireland. The creation of Northern Ireland. Brexit and changing politics in Ireland, north and south of the border, are generating conversations around a ‘New Ireland’ and a potential border poll. The issues in Guard Your Heart remain very relevant.
As a young adult, I made choices to build peace. Personal choices and career choices. After teaching History for 7 years, I switched jobs. For over 16 years now, I’ve worked in community peace-building for local government. For me, peace is about a lot of things, but it’s not about everyone being the same, brushing the past under the carpet and polite avoidance of tough conversations. It’s about understanding and respecting diversity, listening and talking, changing unfair systems and engaging with the issues. Failure to do this, hands the space over to extremists and propaganda. Don’t take peace for granted.
Why do I write? I like to make people think. I hope that Guard Your Heart will do that. Conflict dehumanises the ‘other.’ Stories connect us to the ‘other’. I write because fiction is a powerful tool for creating empathy, and empathy is a powerful tool for creating peace. In life, just as in my writing, I believe that hope happens because of risk takers...
Above all else, read Guard Your Heart for the love story.
This is a novel for Young Adults and Adults. It’s a YA / Crossover for age 12+
‘Compelling’
—Irish Times
“5 Stars. Brilliant. This book is so beautifully written, with so much love and emotion. The characters are fantastic, lifelike and get under your skin. Their story is realistic and heartfelt and complex... I adored this book and everything about it including its message about who we are and why, the people around us and what community really means.”
—Becky (Head In The Pages, Bookstagrammer)
“A story of the repercussions of The Troubles, love and religion and the strains of teenage life, this coming-of-age novel invoked a number of emotions and kept me hanging on for more. Divin’s inclusion of Gaelic and the Protestant/Catholic divides is pinnacle and sets it head and shoulders above other reads of 2021. A must read for any teenager, adult, Irish descent or anyone really, a stellar 5 star read.”
—Holly Hoare