" The writing in this book is lyrical . . . a beautiful book that you will love .” - Good Morning America's #1 Favorite Book of the Year " I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams. " -Ann Patchett, New York Time s bestselling author of Tom Lake " Made me laugh out loud and remember how to love.” - Margaret Renkl, The New York Times From the author of the November 2025 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club Pick, This Is Happiness , a compassionate, life-affirming novel about the Christmas season that transforms the small Irish town of Faha. Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever. Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness , Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time. “I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams.” ― Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of TOM LAKE “A study in human community that made me laugh out loud and remember how to love even the people who cause others so much suffering, and especially those who come together to ease it.” ― Margaret Renkl, The New York Times “The writing in this book is lyrical . . . each sentence is to be savored . . . a beautiful book that you will love.” ― Good Morning America “In this poignant novel, miracles abound . . . An engrossing read, the dark and the rain and the shabby but hopeful holiday decorations blending with the peat smoke and the love, all coming fully alive on the page. And that is something of a miracle itself.” ― Laurie Hertzel, Boston Globe “Dazzles . . . A stylistic cousin to the vernacular achievements of Kevin Barry and Roddy Doyle, but also distinctive: Williams draws on idiosyncrasies of speech but with an eye on literary gloss . . . Williams packs his paragraphs with lush imagery and piercing psychological insight. Line by line, it may be the most beautifully written novel I've read this year. Let's raise a glass of mulled wine to an Emerald Isle master at the peak of his powers.” ― Hamilton Cain, The Washington Post “Revelatory . . . Perhaps the most heartwarming thing of all is how the reader is welcomed into Faha's world. When I cried, it was because, with his careful and compassionate depictions of people, place and time, Williams reminds us of the humanity in all, of the vitality of a community that comes together, and of the power in revealing our vulnerabilities to others.” ― Jen Doll, The New York Times Book Review “Williams' story is unveiled in exquisite, sonorous prose that is uniquely, musically Irish. But his sentences aren't merely beautiful for their own sake: They are beautiful precisely because they are attentive to the specific power of language to elicit, to move, and to invite a reader into the transcendence that a great story can provide.” ― WORLD Magazine, Fiction Book of the Year “Another master class in stunningly poetic depictions of the sorrow and beauty of arduous lives.” ― People “A lyrical writer . . . Moist eyes are all but assured.” ― Heller McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor “Gorgeous, wry and humane . . . Time of the Child may have the best sentences of any novel this year . . . An essentially realistic book that lovingly observes the minutiae of its characters' day-to-day lives but there's an element of quiet magic afoot, too.” ― Minneapolis Star Tribune “Moving . . . Follows a widower and his 29-year-old daughter as they go through the motions of daily life while concealing core truths about themselves-until a foundling child upends their comfortable routine.” ― The New York Times Book Review, "7 New Books We Recommend This Week" “I've just emerged from a Niall Williams binge with a belated appreciation for his writing . . . [ Time of the Child ] feels, at once, realistic in its rough and comic everyday unfolding and mythic in its riffs on the grand themes of despair and spiritual redemption . . . [it] gives readers that singular experience of nearness to the marvelous.” ― Maureen Corrigan, NPR.org “In some ways, Mr. Williams is like a village doctor himself, kindly but firmly administering a healthy dose of sentiment as Jack might a tonic or salve. The holiday season can be hard, so read this, he seems to say. You will have your little cry, and it will do you good.” ― The Wall Str