Louise Kennedy returns with Stations as Trespasses reaches Channel 4
Louise Kennedy, the Northern Ireland-born author of Trespasses, has followed her debut with a second novel called Stations as the screen version of her first book arrives on Channel 4.
Kennedy discussed her life and books in an interview published by The Guardian on 26 September 2026, as Stations was listed for publication by Bloomsbury on 24 September. The Guardian Bloomsbury describes Stations as a moving and immersive novel about first love, addiction and regret. Bloomsbury
Trespasses was first published in 2022 and described as a bestselling debut. It was shortlisted, meaning named among the final contenders, for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction, an annual award for fiction written in English by women. It also won prizes in Ireland and the UK in 2022 and 2023, and was included in The Guardian's Best fiction of 2022 roundup.
The novel follows Cushla, full name Cushla Lavery, a young Catholic teacher in 1970s Belfast who falls in love with Michael, an older married Protestant lawyer. By day she teaches. By night she helps out in her family's bar. Kennedy's own Catholic family ran pubs in Belfast.
The Channel 4 adaptation is a four-part series, meaning a drama told in four episodes. It stars Lola Petticrew, with Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson. Anderson plays Gina, the mother of Cushla. Channel 4
Kennedy is credited as an executive producer on the series, a senior role that can include creative input and a fee. Anderson is also an executive producer, alongside Dawn Shadforth and Finola Dwyer.
What makes this stand out is the path behind it. Kennedy worked as a chef for 30 years, including spells in Dublin and London and two years in Beirut, before settling in Sligo in the west of Ireland. She shares a house there with her husband, son and daughter.
She and her husband bought the Sligo house in 2007 and opened a restaurant the same year. In the September interview Kennedy said they only emerged from negative equity, where a home is worth less than the mortgage owed on it, about a month earlier. It is a plain account of how long one household carried the cost of the financial crash.
Writing came late. Kennedy said she had not considered it since age seven, when a teacher praised a poem she wrote. Her other published book is a short-story collection titled The End of the World Is a Cul-de-Sac.
While writing Trespasses she returned to Wuthering Heights. She said she read Emily Brontë's novel twice and hoped some of its terrible, blinding lust would find its way onto her pages.
The Guardian's autumn 2026 preview listed Stations among the season's new fiction from Bloomsbury. The Guardian For readers, this means two entry points at once. A new novel on the shelf, and an adaptation that retells the book that started it all.
