At 15, Cathy Quinn is a complex teenager living—and feeling trapped—in 1980s Dublin. As the book opens she discovers that her charming older brother Stevie, who's gay, is falling in love with the one boy in school whom she likes. Over her last two years of school, Cathy struggles with her dysfunctional family, school pressures, coming to terms with her powerful attraction to her best friend Jeanette, and leaving Ireland. "The Leaving" is a realistic yet lyrical portrayal of adolescence and first love.

Above all, the novel offers an unflinching look at two siblings growing up in Dublin in the 1980s, when being gay was still taboo, and being different was not tolerated.

Gabriella West is also the author of the lesbian historical novel "Time of Grace," set in Dublin in 1916.