It is so rare that I get to read a book in full these days which is a total shitter because I LOVE books (I even wrote one, remember that craic?!)

Since I’ve had the kiddos, I literally have to leave the country with a book under my arm that I am desperate to read and tell all of my travelling companions to ignore me for the duration of the trip while I devour the pages.

And that is precisely what I did on a recent trip to Marbella (AKA ‘Marbs, dahling’ lol!) when I made a last-minute decision between bringing a rather heavy wedding magazine with me OR bringing the quite heavy new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly with me.

I chose Ross.

(In fairness, there’s fuck-all hilarious about weddings but Ross? I knew I could count on Ross).

‘Game of Throw-ins’ is the sixteenth – SIXTEENTH! – novel in Paul Howard’s epic series. To date, these annual bestsellers have sold over a million copies and are critically acclaimed as satirical masterpieces.

It isn’t hard to see why – I have been hooked from the beginning as a child of the northside who studied third level on the southside. I get all the lingo, I get all the digs at the ridiculousness of the extreme examples of both, I ADORE the untouchable social commentary in each book and mostly I am in love with the phonetical spellings of all of the different accents that are contained within our little island.

My lovely mum and two gorgeous sisters-in-law who I went abroad with had to put up with my sniggering and guffawing by the pool for the few days that we were there as I forego naps for non-stop page-turning.

I couldn’t BELIEVE when I got to the end and can still feel the absence of my pal Ross who I had grown so fond of during the few days we had together.

Until the next time Ross – YA BIG DOPE!!

Ross O’Carroll-Kely is published by Penguin Ireland and is available in all good book stores.