BOOK REVIEW: The Charmer Without a Cause by Katherine Grant

The Charmer Without a Cause by Katherine Grant is the fourth book in her Regency Romance series The Prestons. It brings together a sensitive hero (Benjamin Preston) and a passionate heroine (Lady Lydia Deveraux) in a marriage that Benjamin thinks is a love match, but Lydia thinks is a marriage of convenience.

Benjamin, who comes from a family that live their high principles, has just inherited ten thousand pounds from his uncle. He believes in helping the less fortunate, but wants to find his own cause, not simply follow the path forged by his father. More importantly, Benjamin wants to find true love. He’s known for repeated bouts of instalove, so his father is concerned that he’ll end up with a fortune hunter. In a way, he does.

Lydia’s family belongs to the Irish Protestant aristocracy. And while her parents and brother are glad of their top dog status, Lydia has more compassion for the Irish people who want their independence from Britain. She became a true fighter for Ireland when she fell for Seamus, an Irish Catholic activist who died for his beliefs. Now, Lydia wants only to continue the fight in his memory. She sees her role as marrying for money to funnel funds to the cause.

The first part of her plan succeeds quickly. Benjamin is easy to catch. And he is even more generous with his fortune than Lydia could have hoped. But the political situation is much more difficult to navigate than she anticipated. And it’s hard to keep Benjamin at a distance when he is so handsome and kind, and they are so good together in bed. 

This steamy romance brings together strong characters in a fascinating historical setting. I don’t usually jump into a series at book four, but this one stands very well on its own. However, now I have to go back and read books 1-3!

BOOK REVIEW: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I thought I had read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce in a college English class, but I clearly had not. I just finished reading it for the first time.

A summary is deceptively simple. Joyce presents a fictionalized account of his youth and coming of age, from babyhood to young adulthood, through the eyes and thoughts of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. Dedalus struggles with issues of family, of Irish identity and politics, of Catholicism and faith, and of his increasing understanding of his own artistic, literary temperament. He learns he must break free of it all and strike out on his own.

Of course, this superficial summary doesn’t do justice to the book. It’s not easy to read, but it is extraordinarily rewarding. Joyce’s writing has to be experienced. Maybe I’ll try tackling Dubliners. 

BOOK REVIEW: Long Island by Colm Tóibín

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

I love Colm Tóibín’s novels. I recently read Brooklyn in preparation for his newest release, Long Island. The new book continues the story of Eilis Lacey, an Irish immigrant to New York, who married an Italian plumber, Tony Fiorello, and thus became part of a large Italian-American family. Now the mother of two teenagers, she has adapted to a life in Long Island, but she has never quite fit in. She hasn’t been back to Ireland in over 20 years, and feels disconnected from both her old family and her new.

The vague dissatisfaction she feels with her life worsens to a crisis when a strange man shows up at her door. He claims his wife is pregnant with Tony’s baby. And when the baby is born, he intends to leave it on the Fiorello doorstep because he doesn’t want it in his house. Eilis doesn’t want it in her house either. Although she makes her wishes clear, the Fiorellos make plans behind her back to take the baby in.

While Eilis’ position may seem harsh, the utter disregard for her feelings highlights her isolation. When she decides to go back to Ireland for her mother’s 80th birthday, it is clear to Tony and everyone else that she might not return.

As Eilis is dealing with this, the novel turns to two of the people she left behind in Ireland. Her one-time best friend Nancy, who is now a widow, and Jim Farrell. Jim owns and runs a tavern. Twenty-years ago, he and Eilis had a summer romance (unconsummated), back when Eilis was newly married to Tony. One can imagine Eilis and Jim picking up where they left off, except for one complication. Jim and Nancy are now involved, and secretly engaged.

Tóibín is able to crawl inside these characters’ heads, making them all tragically sympathetic to start. (At least the three protagonists. It’s difficult to feel sympathy for Tony.)  It is impossible to resolve the triangle without a great deal of heartache. I read along, hurting for the characters, unable to guess how it was going to work out, completely engrossed.

While I think Long Island is the better book, I recommend reading Brooklyn first. It’s also superb and will set the stage for the emotionally compelling sequel. 

BOOK REVIEW: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is one of my favorite writers, so I am working through his backlist. Brooklyn, originally published in 2009, does not have the complexity of The Master or The Magician, but it is still captivating. 

Eilis Lacey is a young Irish woman who, although very intelligent, is unable to find work except as a part-time shop clerk in her small Irish town after World War II. Her brothers have gone off to England to find jobs. She and her older sister Rose live with their widowed mother, who has a small pension. Eilis hopes to follow in Rose’s footsteps to some degree. Rose has a job as a bookkeeper and Eilis is taking bookkeeping classes. But Rose is also beautiful, an avid golfer, and has friends in the area. Eilis is quieter, plainer, and does not have Rose’s self-confidence.

Nevertheless, an opportunity arises (thanks to Rose and a visiting priest from the U.S.) for Eilis to emigrate to Brooklyn. She will have a full-time job as a clerk in a department store and a room in a respectable boarding house, all thanks to Father Flood’s intervention. Eilis does not want to go. She’s comfortable in her small town despite its lack of opportunity. Nevertheless, understanding what Rose and their mother are sacrificing for her sake, she goes.

It takes time, but Eilis does settle into life in Brooklyn. She is hardworking, polite, and quiet, and people like that. She does what she’s told and doesn’t complain. She starts taking night classes and is challenged by bookkeeping/accounting classes. Here, in the U.S., there is a chance for her to move up. At the same time, she meets a kind, thoughtful young Italian man, Tony, who falls in love with her. Together, they begin plans for a future. 

Eilis is hesitant at first. She’s fairly passive and seems to make decisions by inertia rather than autonomous desires. And when she is called back to Ireland after a family tragedy, inertia takes hold of her once more.

Eilis is both a sympathetic character and a frustrating one. Readers will be pulled along by the beautiful writing and by sympathy for Eilis and Tony (and Eilis’ family, and her friends in Ireland and acquaintances in Brooklyn.) Leaving the life you know behind is difficult whether it is the old life or the new one, and sometimes it does seem easier just to stay put.

A sequel to this novel, titled Long Island, is due out in May, and I’m curious to see how Eilis’ life has turned out.

BOOK REVIEW: Nora Webster by Colm Toibin

Colm Tóibín became one of my favorite writers after I read The Magician, and I loved The Master as well. I came across Nora Webster in a used bookstore and bought it quite a while ago, but just now got around to reading it. It’s going to be our next book group book.

Set in Ireland in the late sixties, Nora Webster follows the life of a woman who has just lost her husband, Maurice, far too young. (They are in their late 40s.) She has two grown daughters and two younger sons (a teenager and an elementary-school aged boy.) The girls have moved out. The boys are at home.

Nora is a very private and prickly woman. She is distant from her extended family, even her children, and feels closest to her brother-in-law and his wife. She lives in a small, close-knit community where her husband, a school teacher, had been well-loved. Nora wants mostly to be left alone. Very gradually, she emerges from the cocoon of her grief and starts to make a new life for herself.

It’s a quiet book, but compelling because Tóibín climbs inside Nora’s head and makes us feel her deep, unexpressed emotion. At times, the reader may cringe at her inability to connect with people, but then it seems she has been connecting with them, in her own way, all along. The prose is straightforward, evoking the somewhat tunneled, nothing-extraneous life that Nora has lived.

Ireland, at the time, is involved in great political upheavals. These are acknowledged as events on T.V., or protests that one of the daughters is involved with, or the unionization of the business where Nora works. But these events only touch Nora peripherally. Or, she is interested in them only as they touch her world specifically. But it provides a larger context for the reader.

Tóibín’s writing is so wonderful that he can give us a story about an unknown Irish widow and make her life every bit as compelling as those of Thomas Mann and Henry James.

BOOK REVIEW: Ireland by Frank Delaney

Frank Delaney was an Irish writer and broadcaster who died in 2017. A friend recently recommended a podcast where Delaney walks the listener paragraph by paragraph through James Joyce’s Ulysses. My husband and I started listening to it before discovering that Delaney died before completing the task. We’ll continue on and see how far we get. The same friend also recommended Delaney’s novel Ireland.

Ireland is a storyteller’s history of the country. The framework is clever, using two storytellers, an old man and a young one. They first meet when the younger is a nine-year-old boy.

In the early twentieth century, traveling storytellers still existed in Ireland. They were oral historians who wandered the country, taking shelter where they could, hoping to spend a few nights at a time with anyone who would take them in and feed them in exchange for stories. 

The older man is known only as The Storyteller. He appears one night at the home of Ronan O’Mara, the nine-year-old, who is enthralled by the stories. Ronan’s mother, a cold and embittered woman, is not, and The Storyteller is rather unceremoniously booted from the house after a couple of days. Ronan essentially spends the rest of his life (at least the life covered by the novel) searching for the man.

The novel alternates between scenes from Ronan’s formative years and the stories he manages to collect from The Storyteller (who leaves him letters, or shows up on radio broadcasts, or leaves the memories of his stories with others who pass them on to Ronan.) In addition to the mystery of the identity of The Storyteller, and the fear that the old man will die before Ronan catches up with him, there is also a good deal of mystery involving Ronan’s own family. While poignant and, in the end, believable when all the pieces come together, what I didn’t quite believe was that pretty much everyone in Ireland except Ronan knew his family secrets. Even I guessed them early on. It is believable that Ronan could be kept in the dark. People can be blind to things close to them. What I had trouble with was how widely known his family secrets were. 

Aside from that, the story was lovely. The Storyteller did have a knack for telling a tale. The novel presented a “greatest hits” of Irish history in a historical fiction-like way. It is, however, a long book, and the last 100 to 150 pages started to drag. Ronan’s wandering search for the wandering storyteller lost momentum. The tension — would he find the man on time and why was The Storyteller so purposefully elusive? — stretched thin until I lost interest in the resolution. And some of the later stories/missives from The Storyteller were too self-indulgent. I understand that he loved every rock and flower in his country (as, obviously, does Delaney), but I ended up skimming those bits in the last part of the book as they got repetitive. This is also a man’s book about men. There are women in the stories, but they are bit players and the tone of the novel came across as patronizing, which was a little too quaint. Even so, it’s a novel I’m glad I read.

My friend listened to this as an audiobook read by Mr. Delaney himself. If you enjoy audiobooks, I think that would be a better format. Hearing The Storyteller rather than reading him might be the right way to experience the tale.

BOOK REVIEW: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The first of Emma Donoghue’s books that I read was Slammerkin, many years ago. Although un-put-downable, I didn’t like it: it was too brutal, the protagonist too awful. I didn’t return to the author until Room, which everyone insisted was a must-read. And it was. Donoghue is an extraordinary writer. I read her most recent historical, The Pull of the Stars, and decided I really need to work through her backlist. So, I just finished The Wonder.

Set in Ireland in the mid-1800s, it is after the famine years of failed potato harvests, but the land is still drenched with poverty and is just staving off hunger. People need to eat to live, a tragic fact when there isn’t enough food. But what if they didn’t?

So when one little girl stops eating on her eleventh birthday, and goes without food for four months yet remains healthy and happy, the small community celebrates the miracle. The girl’s elderly doctor sends a off a report, convinced that he is involved in a great medical discovery. The child’s parents and priest are convinced they are nurturing a future saint. All that is needed is proof. A committee of townsmen sends for two nurses to watch over the child, Anna, for two weeks, to confirm that she is eating nothing. One nurse is a Catholic nun. The other, Elizabeth “Lib” Wright, is an Englishwoman, a nurse trained in the Crimean War by Florence Nightingale.

Lib arrives in the Irish backwater with her mind closed, her decision made. She isn’t there to confirm the miracle, but to expose the fraud. She’s appalled by the weather, the food, the accommodations, and the fanatical superstitious religiousness of the local people. She mistrusts them all, wondering how many are in on the fraud and how many are simply gullible. She’s unimpressed, too, by the Catholic nun who is more concerned with obeying orders than with the child.

Over the first few days, Lib concentrates on discovering how food is being surreptitiously delivered. When she can find no evidence of this, she starts focusing on Anna. Why won’t the girl eat? And as it becomes clear that Anna is starving to death, Lib’s main concern becomes saving the child’s life.

Donoghue immerses the reader in the world of the protagonist, whose own murky backstory is only slowly revealed to the reader as the puzzle of Anna also starts to become clear. The novel’s momentum builds as Lib and the reader come to appreciate the strength of all the forces combined against the child, including the child’s own will.

The Wonder is beautifully written, horrifying, sad, and ultimately hopeful. 

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Wedding by Patrick Taylor

When I want a simple, heartwarming, non-taxing, holiday read, or anytime I want something reliably entertaining with subdued-to-absent conflict, I turn to Patrick Taylor’s An Irish Country series. I’m up to Book 7: An Irish Country Wedding. 

Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly, the sympathetic general practitioner in fictional Ballybucklebo,  is preparing to finally wed the sweetheart from his long-ago medical school days, Kitty O’Halloran. They are very much in love and it should be smooth sailing for them, but there are a few hiccups.

First, O’Reilly’s assistant and would-be new partner, Dr. Barry Laverty, is having second thoughts about small-town general practice. He hates that he has to send every complicated case to the big city hospital for treatment. He has a particular knack for obstetrics, so has signed on to do a fellowship in the city, with the understanding that he has a few months to make up his mind about returning to Ballybucklebo.

The second potential problem is that O’Reilly’s long-standing housekeeper and cook, Kinky Kincaid, is on the defensive, worried that she will be replaced by the new wife. Since Kitty O’Halloran is a nurse who has no intention of quitting her job, Kinky’s place is secure, but she has trouble believing that. And then, she is stricken with a strangulated hernia, requiring a prolonged hospital stay and an even longer recuperation period, which makes her even more nervous about losing her place. O’Reilly, Laverty, and O’Halloran have to convince her she’s indispensable.

Along the way, there are the usual ups and downs amongst the townspeople. Various ailments, some mild, some life-threatening, need to be attended to. And there are a variety of social problems--the rich getting richer and the poor getting taken advantage of--that O’Reilly and, increasingly, Laverty, take a hand in sorting out or ameliorating.

It’s a community of decent people, full of affection for one another, living their lives. The books are a bit old-fashioned and a little bit corny, but that was perfect for a Thanksgiving read.

BOOK REVIEW: The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

 Emma Donoghue writes beautiful novels with unforgettable characters of remarkable depth. But they are depressing books. The Pull of the Stars, the newest release is an immersive look into the life of a nurse in Dublin in 1918, during the Spanish flu epidemic, toward the end of World War I. (If you think things are bad now—and they are—these characters are going through worse.)

Julia Power is a single woman, turning thirty, living in a small apartment with her younger brother who returned from the war unable to speak. While he takes care of the home, she goes to work each day in the Maternity/Fever ward of the hospital. This is a tiny closet of a room for the lying-in of pregnant patients with the flu.

There are not enough doctors or nurses to go around, and Julia finds herself placed in charge of the ward when one of her superiors sickens. She has three critical patients to care for over the course of her next twelve-hour shift. When she asks for help, a volunteer is assigned to her, Bridie Sweeney, a twenty-two-ish young woman who was orphaned and brought up by nuns. Remarkably, the girl is good-natured and thrilled with the chance to work in the maternity ward. She learns quickly, doesn’t complain, and is gentle with the patients. Julia finds herself fascinated by and drawn to Bridie. Over the course of the next couple of days, Julia and the reader learn what a horrific upbringing Bridie had.

Obstetricians are also in short supply. A woman doctor has been hired to help out, Dr. Kathleen Lynn. Dr. Lynn is a Rebel who took place in an armed uprising against the government months earlier and spent time in prison. Rumored to be continuing her rebellious activities, Dr. Lynn is being hunted by the police. Julia is on the opposite side of the political spectrum. All she knows is that the uprising was violent and people died. However, after talking with Dr. Lynn, she comes to understand the viewpoint of the Rebels. While she does not condone the violence, she admires Dr. Lynn’s courage and agrees with the goals.

As Julia cares for the changing roster of patients in her care, she calls upon every bit of experience she’s had and knowledge she has gleaned from watching others, to save the few lives that she can. The descriptions of difficult labors and of some subsequent deaths are not for the faint-hearted. Donoghue does not shy away from graphic details. It makes for gripping, heart-wrenching reading.

It’s difficult to read yet another pandemic/plague book, one that is also saturated with economic injustice and political turmoil. There are a couple of bright spots and a hint of hopefulness, but The Pull of the Stars left me thinking, sadly, that we haven’t made much progress in the last one hundred years.

BOOK REVIEW: A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor

Patrick Taylor’s novels about general practitioners in a fictional small town in Ireland set around the 1960s caught my attention several years back. I started reading my way through them, but stalled 2 ½ years ago with An Irish Country Courtship. Because I’m looking for some “comfort reads,” and because my local library has partially reopened with curbside service, I decided to move on to book six, A Dublin Student Doctor.

This novel jumps back in time to the 1930s to show Dr. Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly’s medical school days in Dublin and his introduction to the woman he is re-courting in the 1960s, Kitty O’Hallorhan. It uses a somewhat clunky framing device to get us from “current day” into O’Reilly’s memory. O’Reilly and his young partner, Dr. Laverty, are on their way home from an outing when they come across a bicycle vs. car accident. The victim is one of O’Reilly’s friends/patients, Donal Donnelly. He has a bad head injury. An ambulance is on the way, so O’Reilly arranges to accompany Donal to the hospital in Dublin, a few hours away. There, he will be operated upon by an old classmate of O’Reilly’s, who is now a brain surgeon. O’Reilly spends the night in the old student quarters and reminisces about his student days.

O’Reilly knew, from the age of thirteen, that he wanted to be a doctor. He had obstacles to overcome, the first being his father’s adamant disapproval. But O’Reilly stuck to his guns, paying his own way. Family dynamics are one plot arc.

There are two other main arcs. One is O’Reilly’s love life. Early on, he meets Kitty, a student nurse. They start spending time together, but only very little time as they are both busy. O’Reilly is hesitant to commit to the relationship because of the demands of medical school. Too hesitant.

The final arc is his progress through medical school. He has the support of a “study group” which includes the future brain surgeon. They are a tight-knit group, with varying degrees of dedication to their studies. The work is difficult but fascinating. In addition to the studying, O’Reilly has to overcome his natural empathy for the patients without becoming hardened to their suffering.

It’s an interesting look into the life and times of medical students in Dublin in the 1930s. There are vaguely ominous political rumblings in the background. The author takes pains to describe the medical evaluations and surgical procedures O’Reilly would have been exposed to. Some of it has an info-dumpy feel to it, but it does make the setting seem realistic. Also realistic was the hard drinking for relaxation and the sexist outlook of the group of men. There was a female medical student rotating with them, and they accepted her as a colleague, but there was never a thought of including her outside of the wards. They had to work in pairs and she was left to partner with Fitzpatrick, an obsequious, annoying student who sucked up to the attendings and threw a wet blanket on all their fun. She was really a non-character, but at least there was a female medical student.

Taylor’s novels are comforting reads. The characters are good-hearted. The conflicts are middle-of-the-road. Most are resolved happily and those that aren’t are poignant rather than tragic. There are several more in this series and I’m sure I’ll return to it again.

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor

It’s been too long since I visited Ballybucklebo to spend time with Drs. Barry Laverty and Finnegan O’Reilly. The books are sweet, entertaining reads that show slices of daily life and medical practice in rural Ireland in the 1960s. (I’ve decided that the timing counts for historical fiction.)

An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor picks up where An Irish Country Christmas left off. Dr. Laverty is continuing as assistant to general practitioner Dr. O’Reilly. But he’s having doubts about staying on. Although he enjoys working with and being mentored by Dr. O’Reilly, and likes the small town and its people, he wants a domestic life with a wife and family. He is in love with Patricia Spence who has gone off to school to become an engineer. While he was originally supportive of her goals, it seems he only will support her so far. He’s willing to wait for her to get her education, but then he expects her to come live in Balleybucklebo and keep house for him. Patricia has given him multiple clues that she wants different things out of life. At the beginning of this novel, she breaks the news to him that she cannot envision a small town life. Moreover, she’s met someone else. It’s over.

Laverty is heartbroken, wondering what he might have done differently, and wondering if he is really cut out for small town doctoring. Will he get bored? Will he grow increasingly frustrated when all the difficult cases have to be referred out? Should he pursue his interest in and talent for OB/GYN?

Dr. O’Reilly, on the other hand, is moving full-steam ahead with his romance with nurse Kitty O’Hallorhan. The only problem is that his long-time housekeeper and cook, Kinky, is getting nervous about being replaced.

The gentle progress of Laverty’s healing and O’Reilly’s courtship make for a pleasant plot arc. The medical emergencies and non-emergencies that they deal with along the way keep the book interesting. And, of course, their "arch-enemy", Councilor Bishop, is still up to no good and needs thwarting.

While the novels follow a pattern, they have some surprises and I’m sure I’ll keep following the developments. I’d like to see less of Laverty’s friend, Jack, who is a skirt-chasing surgeon who is getting more and more annoying, but the other characters are lots of fun.

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor

One of the authors I go to when I’m looking for a sweet, feel-good (even a bit corny) read, is Patrick Taylor. His Irish Country Doctor books are consistently enjoyable. So I moved on to Book 4: An Irish Country Girl.

This novel is a departure from the chronological progression of the first three novels which focused on the newly minted Dr. Barry Laverty and his crusty mentor, Dr. Fingal O’Reilly. These good-hearted, dedicated physicians serve the small country village of Ballybucklebo. They are supported by the calm, kind, and highly efficient housekeeper, Maureen (Kinky) Kincaid. Throughout the course of the previous books, it’s been demonstrated that Kinky is, in addition to her more down-to-earth talents, gifted with “the sight.”

An Irish Country Girl gives us Kinky’s backstory.

Kinky is preparing Christmas dinner for the two doctors and their friends. While the doctors are at a party prior to dinner, Kinky entertains the local children with a story from (about) her youth. A young man in her town defied the fairies and was horribly punished. At a suitable stopping point in the fairy tale/ghost story, Kinky dismisses the children and gets back to work. As she prepares the dinner, she reminisces about her youth and the young man she met and fell in love with.

It’s a pleasant enough story with scattered exciting events and some tender family moments. Overall, though, the pacing was uneven and I found the love story to be unconvincing. It’s a love-at-first-sight romance, and I always find those unsatisfying. The device of Kinky remembering the story was also strained as every minute detail is relayed. While that helps put the reader into the moment, it made Kinky’s storytelling feel false.

All in all, it was nice filler in the series, but didn’t feel necessary. Although, maybe as I get farther into the series, I’ll better appreciate this glimpse into Kinky’s life before Ballybucklebo.

BOOK REVIEW: As Death Draws Near by Anna Lee Huber

I’ve been a fan of Anna Lee Huber’s historical mystery series, A Lady Darby Mystery, since I read the first book, The Anatomist’s Wife, back in 2013. The latest instalment, book five, As Death Draws Near, has recently been released.

Spoiler Alert: This review will mention how the relationship between Lady Kiera Darby and her crime-solving partner, Sebastian Gage, has progressed. So if you want to watch the whole thing unfold, I recommend starting with book one. Really, that’s the way all series should be read!

This story begins with Gage and Kiera on their honeymoon. They have little time to relax and enjoy England’s lake country before receiving a request/command from Gage’s father to proceed to Ireland to investigate a murder. The victim is a relative of the Duke of Wellington. And she’s a nun. The detecting pair are unable to say no to that.

As Kiera and Gage begin their investigation, questioning the nuns in the abbey and people of the town, they discover significant unrest (religious and political) in the area, but no indication why anyone would murder the young Harriet Lennox. The more they dig, the more confused they become. Then a second nun is murdered, raising the stakes even higher.

The issues surrounding the mystery are complex. The questions raised allow the reader to delve into English/Irish and Protestant/Catholic relations in this historical period. It also leads to a good deal of reflection on Kiera’s part. Now that she is not so much a prisoner of her past experiences, she has to contemplate what she wants to make of her future. Although the relationship with Gage is more settled than in previous books and they are more confident of each other, they still have areas to explore. As in earlier books, the combination of mystery and romance is well balanced and guaranteed to keep readers coming back for more.

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Christmas

I was in the mood for something that would be light, amusing, and gentle on the psyche. There’s too much craziness going on just now and I needed to escape into a fictional world that would soothe: just enough conflict to keep it interesting, but nothing to get worked up over, and something I could read with complete confidence that things would be all right in the end.

I knew just what to choose: the next book in Patrick Taylor’s Irish Country series. Having read the first two books, An Irish Country Doctor and An Irish Country Village, I knew I could count on this author to deliver.

The fact that book three is An Irish Country Christmas made checking it out of the library feel a bit silly. Who reads a Christmas book on a 90-degree day in July? But I wasn’t about to read the series out of order. This novel could possibly be read as a standalone, but I recommend starting with book one.

It’s simple to slip back into the small Irish town of Ballybucklebo and catch up with the main characters, Dr. Fingal O’Reilly and Dr. Barry Laverty. The whole town is preparing for the annual Christmas pageant and traditional parties. It’s all so convivial–even the bad guys from previous novels are softer around the holidays–that Barry grows more and more enamored of the small Irish town, and readers will too.

There are a few wrinkles. First, there is a new physician in the town next door, who seems intent on poaching patients. O’Reilly knows the man from medical school days, and the two have never gotten along, but that’s no reason to go on the attack. The real concern is that he is luring patients away with bizarre cure-alls that both our heroes worry may be dangerous.

In addition, the two Ballybucklebo physicians are distracted by their love lives. O’Reilly, an older widower who never expected to fall in love again, is challenged by the reappearance of an old girlfriend, the confident, competent, beautiful nurse, Kitty O’Hallorhan. She makes her interest known and he has to decide if he’s ready to open his heart once more. As for Laverty, the love of his life, Patricia Spence, is away in the big city, beginning her engineering studies. Although the plan had been to come to Ballybucklebo for Christmas, Patricia keeps putting Barry off with excuses he isn’t quite buying. She assures him there is no other man in the picture, but he worries that if it’s not another man, it’s the allure of city living. If that’s what she wants, she won’t find it in Ballybucklebo. And Laverty, despite being a decent guy, is having a hard time keeping his eye from roving. If she isn’t going to come home, is it time for him to look elsewhere?

The villagers remain entertaining with their good hearts and eccentricities. O’Reilly still governs them all, and Laverty’s knowledge of the community continues to expand. The series has not lost its charm. I know the next time I need a feel-good read, book 4 will be waiting.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lion and the Cross. A Novel of Saint Patrick and Ancient Ireland by Joan Lesley Hamilton

Disclaimer: I received this book free from Netgalley. This did not influence my review.

First published in 1979, The Lion and the Cross: A Novel of Saint Patrick and Ancient Ireland by Joan Lesley Hamilton has been re-released by Open Road. Generally, I’m a big fan of historical novels written back in those days (how long ago the 70's seem!) and Saint Patrick is an ideal protagonist, so I was happy for the opportunity to review this book.

Patrick (Padraic) is an old man of forty, looking back on his life, as the prologue opens the story. This device allows the older but wiser man to pass judgement on his younger self and thereby mitigates some of the judgement the reader might want to pass upon him. Young Patrick was not a likeable guy. Spoiled, rebellious, too sure of himself, and an avowed atheist (in defiance of his very religious parents), the youth is running amok himself on the day barbarian raiders from Eire sweep through his village, looting and pillaging. He returns just in time to stumble upon the raiders, who cart him back to their homeland to be a slave.

His stubborn defiance serves him well in some ways, but he is slow to see or accept the workings of God in his life. Eventually, he rises to a position of some prominence in the court of a powerful king, a warlord, though it is always understood he is a slave. He wears his Christianity as a symbol of his defiance, and takes a good deal of pride in the superiority of his God and therefore himself. Always, Patrick is certain of what God wants for him and what God surely must not want, and when those expectations don’t correspond with current reality, Patrick’s response is anger or doubt. The miracles God works through him and the visions Patrick is sent, even the voice of God speaking to him directly, each only temporarily convince Patrick that God is, in fact, with him. This is understandable enough as Patrick’s life is extremely challenging. But his vacillation gets a bit wearying and his arrogance makes him an unappealing protagonist. These things make the story more difficult to read, even if this realistic approach is ultimately rewarding.

It takes the remainder of his youth and many bitter adventures before God humbles Patrick to the point where he can be a useful servant. The novel ends before Patrick returns as a missionary to Ireland, but the fact that he will do so is no longer in doubt.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. The story is interesting and a credible representation of a life that is poorly documented. The author does a good job of creating a life story from the few facts and the legends that have sprung up around him. She also does a wonderful job of making Ancient Ireland and Briton vivid and real. The key events in Patrick’s fictional life are compellingly presented. However, there is a lot of wandering in the wilderness for this lost young man, a lot of soul-searching and backsliding. I found myself skimming over parts of it, just enough to get the gist of what was going on, as I got bogged down in the sometimes over-written prose. It was difficult to connect with the other characters, despite finding them convincingly portrayed, because Patrick himself doesn’t connect in lasting or meaningful ways. His friendships are fairly shallow, because he is always angry and superior. His relationships with women are not relationships, but rather he lusts after or condescends to them, worships or hates them. He never really sees them as people.

For historical fiction fans who are interested in this Dark Ages time period and/or those with an interest in great historical religious figures, this re-release is worth a look.

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Village by Patrick Taylor

Back in March, I read Patrick Taylor’s An Irish Country Doctor and enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s the first book in a fairly large series so I made a mental note to seek out the next one, but I wasn’t in a tearing hurry. It was a charming book, but not something with a cliff-hanger ending. (That’s a plus, not a criticism.)

Anyway, the mood struck me to return to Ballybucklebo and see what is going on with young Dr. Barry Laverty and his mentor, Dr. Fingal O’Reilly in book two: An Irish Country Village.

Although it’s been a few months, it was easy to slide right back in to the fictional world in a novel that essentially picks up where the last one left off. Dr. Laverty has been offered a more permanent position with Dr. O’Reilly, with an eye to becoming a full partner. Laverty has fallen in love with Ballybucklebo and with the vision of himself as a country physician. He is thrilled and honored to get the offer and is ready to sign on.

Double disasters strike. (Or one disaster and one dilemma.) First, a patient dies unexpectedly. Laverty had previously missed a critical diagnosis in this man–a mistake that he has already beaten himself up over again and again. Now, he’s horrified to think that his error might have led to the man’s death. Moreover, the man’s wife is threatening a lawsuit. While Dr. O’Reilly is standing behind Laverty and won’t rescind his offer, Laverty wonders if he’ll have to reject it. In this small town, the people will never trust him again if he’s sued.

Besides all that, does he really want to stay? He’s fallen in love with Patricia Spence, a civil engineering student away at college in Belfast. It’s difficult enough getting to spend time with her, but worth the effort. Yet now, his brilliant girlfriend is competing for a scholarship to Cambridge. To win would be a huge accomplishment, not just for Patricia personally, but to advance the cause of women in engineering. Laverty wants to be supportive, but he can’t bear the idea of her moving farther away for three years. He could go with her, but he doesn’t want to leave Ballybucklebo. Unless he has to. . .

Much like the first novel, the book follows the two doctors about their daily business, both medical and non-medical, as they care for the people of their small town in myriad ways. The people give back. Some are sweet, some cantankerous, some goofy, but they are all interesting characters. The lives of Laverty and O’Reilly continue to charm. Laverty is an intelligent, thoughtful protagonist. It’s a slow amble of a read, though never dull – a stop and smell the roses kind of book. I’m sure I’ll be picking up book three in another few months down the road.

BOOK REVIEW: An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor

I just finished a charming book: An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor.

We recently had a mini-vacation and I spent some time browsing in bookstores. I saw a bright, eye-catching cover: An Irish Country Doctor at Peace and At War and the blurb sounded interesting. I almost bought it, but then I realized it was book nine in a series. Well, I couldn’t do that. So, I put it back on the shelf and resolved to look up the previous books. Usually when something like that happens, I promptly forget the author. Fortunately, this title was distinctive enough to stick with me, and something about the blurb appealed to me enough, that I actually did check my library when I got home.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading for challenges and for Netgalley, so I wanted to read something just because. Although now I’m debating counting it toward the historical fiction challenge.

The novel is set in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Dr. Barry Laverty is a freshly trained physician contemplating what to do with the rest of his life. He’s quite sure he doesn’t want to be a surgeon, like his good friend, Jack Mills, who stayed on in Belfast for specialized training. Instead, he applied to be an assistant to a rural general practitioner, Dr. Fingal O’Reilly, in Ballybucklebo, to see if general practice suits him.

Dr. O’Reilly takes him on and shows him the ropes of small town doctoring. Dr. Barry Laverty is well-trained as far as medical school and residency go, but nothing beats experience–as he is about to find out. O’Reilly is full of folksy advice, gruff one moment and sensitive the next. He knows his patients well and he reads Laverty like a book because he was once just like him. There is a housekeeper/gatekeeper/cook with a heart of gold. There is also an assortment of pets full of personality. (Laverty’s position comes with salary, room, and board so he gets to experience it all.) The town is stocked with people of all stripes, sick and malingering, well-to-do and poor, kindly and nasty, sensible and eccentric. O’Reilly deals with them all in turn, occupying a central part of the community and helping to insert Laverty into the same central space, managing to make room for them both.

There is also a budding love interest for the young doctor.

There is something predictable and a bit corny about the book. . .and yet, it’s a sweet and satisfying read and one that made a few hours speed pleasurably by. Taylor describes the rural Northern Ireland setting with obvious love and made me yearn for a place I’ve never been. Although nine books cut of the same cloth might get to be a bit much, I was sort of disappointed to turn the last page because I could have gone on reading. So I’ll likely move on to the second. And then. . .well, I tend to stick to series once I start them. And these are likeable characters.

The 1960s were 50 years ago. And Dr. O’Reilly’s surgery/office was in his house and he spent his afternoon making house calls. So, yes. I’m counting this toward the historical fiction challenge.