Saving 6

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse, bullying, and substance use.

The Boys of Tommen series is a collection of books by author Chloe Walsh. There are currently five published books, with more planned in the future. They each tell the stories of different teenage relationships within the fictional Irish community Ballylaggin, centered around the rugby team at Tommen College—a private school—and the hurling team at Ballylaggin Community School (BCS), the local public school. (Hurling is a popular stick-and-ball sport played in Ireland.)

The first two novels in the series follow Shannon Lynch, Joey’s younger sister. They are titled Binding 13 (2018) and Keeping 13 (2018)—13 is the jersey number of star rugby player Johnny Kavanagh, a boy Shannon meets at Tommen College, Central to their relationship is Shannon’s abusive home life at the hands of her father, Teddy. While Johnny deals with the pressures of athletic excellence and his potential to become a player on the national team, Shannon struggles to fit in after years of bullying and abuse from her peers at BCS. The two fight their attraction to each other for months, convinced that they have too much stress in their lives for a relationship, until they decide to let each other in and use each other as support.