"I felt no guilt. If I was indeed going to the bad, he had sent me on my way."

Shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards 2020 
Teen / Young Adult Book of the Year

 It is 1921. Ireland has been at war with Britain for two years. 

Communities are torn apart by bitter hatred —  and now a hard border splits the island. 

Polly runs away to Helen's Hope hostel in Belfast,  a feminist space where young women live and work together —  a haven of tolerance and diversity in a fractured city. 

But some people hate Helen's Hope and its progressive values. How can a few girls stand up to hatred — when some of it  comes from within their own walls? 

And when the hostel is violently attacked, how can Polly keep hope alive? 

“I devoured this book in one furious reading session. Funny, moving and full of wisdom, Hope Against Hope shows Sheena Wilkinson is a writer at the top of her game.” – Jan Carson, winner of the EU Prize for Literature 2019

“Launched recently, Sheena Wilkinson’s third historical novel, Hope Against Hope… could not be more relevant in today’s post-Brexit Northern Ireland.” –  Irish Independent

“Set in a women’s hostel in a newly-partitioned island, Wilkinson again presents motivated believable female characters in entirely convincing historical conditions, taking control of their own lives and impacting on others’. The writer is an Arts Council Major Artist and has a formidable narrative gift and an acute sense of historical justice.” – Belfast Telegraph

“Ideal for thoughtful teenage readers and adults alike.” – Sarah Webb, Irish Independent

'"Stands out for its empathetic exploration of living through a watershed historical moment."  –  Publishers Weekly

Sheena Wilkinson is one of the most acclaimed Irish writers for young people. Since the publication of the multi-award-winning Taking Flight in 2010, she has published several novels, including Grounded, which won the 2013 Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year award. Her first historical novel, Name upon Name, set during the 1916 Easter Rising, was chosen as Waterford City’s ‘One Community, One Book’ title; Star by Star, set at the time of the momentous 1918 General Election, when women in Ireland voted for the first time, won the 2018 Children’s Books Ireland Honour Award for Fiction and was selected as a Booktrust ‘Future Classic’. Sheena lives in County Down, where she spends her time writing, singing, and walking in the forest thinking up more stories.