The Icicle Lounge

Some doors appear only when they are needed. The Icicle Lounge is a place of winter-blue light, stained glass and unexpected warmth. It appears on frozen hillsides, beside lonely roads, on Atlantic shores—and sometimes where no door stood the day before. Inside wait North, Frost, Snow and Ice: four figures woven into the strange history of the Lounge. And always there is the fifth seat, waiting for someone. Who it waits for, and why, is something no one entirely understands. Across a linked collection of stories, lonely travellers, grieving men, tentative lovers and those searching for somewhere to belong find their way through the frost-rimmed door. In 1950s Ireland, the Lounge offers sanctuary in a world where queer men must live carefully. In a July heatwave, it recognises that winter can exist inside us even when the sun is blazing. And as Ciarán follows the mysterious door through Wicklow, Kildare and Donegal, what begins as refuge becomes pilgrimage. Tender, playful and quietly magical, The Icicle Lounge is an illustrated collection about queer belonging, chosen sanctuary and the warmth we make for one another. Come in from the cold.