I realised that I don't read enough work by female writers, so this year I signed up to the #ReadWomen2014 hashtag on Twitter and was delighted to find so many brilliant Irish women writing in all fiction genres.

My standouts were The House Where It Happened (Ward River Press), by Martina Devlin, a tale of witch trials based on real events in Co Antrim in the early 18th century; Can Anybody Help Me? by Sinéad Crowley (Quercus), a social-media crime thriller featuring a pregnant detective; The Playground, by Julia Kelly, a beautifully written and searingly honest account of single motherhood; and Fallen by Lia Mills (Penguin Ireland), an incredibly well-researched historical novel set in Dublin after the first World War.

On the international scene, Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent's Tail) is the most impressively original book I've read this year. Next year I may challenge myself to read some nonfiction.

Unravelling Oliver, by Liz Nugent, is published by Penguin Ireland