Alex Dunne author page

Alex Dunne biography

Alex Dunne is an Irish children’s author. She studied English and History at the University of Limerick and completed an MA in Literature and Publishing at NUI Galway. She is also a co-founder of Silver Apples Magazine, an online literary journal publishing Irish and international writing.

Her first children’s novel, The Book of Secrets, was published by The O’Brien Press in 2022. The fantasy adventure draws on Irish mythology and folklore and follows eleven-year-old Cat Donnelly, who has the Sight, as the return of the Trooping Fairies brings supernatural danger to her family. The book won the Eilís Dillon Award for a First Book at the 2023 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards and was nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing. It also won the Debut Novel Award at the 2024 Renaissance Learning Quiz Writers’ Choice Awards.

Dunne returned to Cat and her friend Shane in The Harp of Power, published by The O’Brien Press in 2023. The second book sends the pair on a quest involving the legendary island of Hy-Brasil and a magical harp capable of influencing those who hear it. The Harp of Power was shortlisted for a Literacy Association of Ireland Award in 2025.

Her later novel Small Magics, with cover illustration by Alice Power, introduces Molly Flynn, who discovers that her new foster family runs a shop selling spells and potions and becomes involved in protecting magical creatures from an unknown threat. The O’Brien Press published the book in 2026.

Dunne also wrote Small Magics: Spellbound, an Ireland-only £1/€1.50 title selected for World Book Day 2027. The story brings Molly and her magical mentor Frank the goblin into a new adventure after the spirit of a Norse god is accidentally released from a museum.