The Creaky Old Barn

Finished July 8

The Creaky Old Barn by B.E. Baker

This is the second in the Irish Escape series that I recently started and wanted to follow the characters into their adventure. 

Natalie is just arriving in Ireland with her five children, with her plan to run the estate as a hotel coming together. She's been getting the website in order, and arranging things remotely with the previous owner and the housekeeper that she's kept on. Her new vehicle is ready and waiting and her kids, four daughters and a five-year-old son are interested in what their future entails. She moves into the largest home outside the estate house itself.

Samantha is ready to throw herself into the horse side of their business getting to know the horses they now own. When she hears that Vanessa is having second thoughts she makes a pitstop in Colorado and sees what is happening there. Her experience as a nurse practitioner, and her support as a good friend both prove helpful to Vanessa in rededicating her to the new adventure. She even gets Vanessa's oldest and troubled son on board. 

Samantha moves into the small cottage near the barn, but finds it is in worse shape than she expected, without even a working bathroom. She begins an intense renovation with a focus on getting the bathroom up and working, before her belonging arrive. She also looks for help from the previous owner's stable manager. 

Vanessa and her three kids move into the other house on the property and start to get settled, but Vanessa finds that her focus on her son's recovery and mental health may interfere with her own chance at a new relationship.

I liked the slow start that romance has here, with all three women unattached. Vanessa, as a widow, is the one most ready to move forward and that makes sense. But we see that elements of the past have followed all of the women here, and may affect how they can settle into their new homes. 

There is hope here, but also setbacks, and some miscommunication thrown in as well. Enjoyable and entertaining enough to interest me in continuing the series. 

The Crumbly Old Castle

Finished July 3

The Crumbly Old Castle by B.E. Baker

This women's fiction novel follows three women as they travel and consider their lives. The women met as children at riding school and horses are still in all their lives. Since they became adults they've taken a vacation together every year, often within the United States, but this year they have a Irish vacation planned. While they all grew up in Florida, only one of them still lives there. Vanessa married Jason, a guy she met when looking for a job when she was in college, got an accounting degree and supported Jason as he agreed to buy his brother out of the construction equipment business they would inherit from their father. When Jason died a few years ago and then Covid hit, she struggled to keep afloat, accepting help from his brother Jeremy who still works for the business. She has three children. 

Samantha married, but didn't have children. She still lives in Florida where she works as a nurse practitioner, trains horses, restores and resells properties with her husband, and is generally happy with her life. 

Natalie lives in Texas with her husband and five children. She is very involved in her children's lives, is highly organized, and works part-time managing social media for several small businesses. So it is a surprise to her when she arrives at the airport to find that she is a day early for her flight. She is embarrassed at this lapse from her usually planning, but decides to return home. She finds her husband in bed with another woman, although her presence wasn't noticed by them, and she leaves immediately. In shock, she stays at a hotel near the airport and goes on a rage-induced clothing shopping spree. 

Samantha's husband makes an unreasonable ultimatum just before she leaves and she finds herself questioning her life as it is. 

For Vanessa, the last few years have been rough, with her husband's unexpected death, keeping the company afloat, and her oldest son's injury derailing his sports goals and sending him to drug abuse. He's been in rehab three times, and she gets a call just as she's leaving that he's been caught again at school. Her husband's brother Jeremy was going to be watching the kids and the business while she's gone, and although she's worried, he assures her that he will deal with her son's drug abuse situation as well. 

Once in Ireland, it doesn't take long before they confess their situations to each other, and determine to make the most of their trip. From visiting historic sites, to engaging in new experiences from hawking to attending hurling games, and of course horseback riding, they find the support they need from each other and from new friends they make along the way. 

When Natalie and Vanessa find even more betrayal in their lives, the consider their futures and what they really want for themselves and their children. 

I really enjoyed the Irish experiences they had, and the friends they made as they travelled. I also found these characters interesting. My only criticism is that they end of the book seemed rushed, with lots of details either skimmed over or not even mentioned. I couldn't help but wonder if the book was originally intended to stop earlier in the story and the author was convinced to take the story forward within this first book in the series. I do plan to read the second book to see what happens next. 

There are hints at future romances for these women, but with their lives undergoing other unexpected disruptions, that's not a priority.

Flying by the Seat of My Knickers

Finished November 24

Flying by the Seat of My Knickers by Eliza Watson

This is the first book in a series called The Travel Mishaps of Caity Shaw. Caity is from the Chicago area, and has recently had a few setbacks, both personally and professionally. She'd been in a long term relationship and hadn't realized how bad it was until someone approached her in a restaurant washroom and offered assistance. Emotional and mental abuse is often enacted gradually over time and when one is in it, it is hard to see the reality. When she decided to leave the relationship, the resulting situation also affected her work and she lost her job.

Now her sister Rachel, who works in event planning, has given her a position at an event in Ireland. She takes it, hoping to regain the previous close relationship she had with Rachel, but is finding herself worried about the mistakes she makes. She finds herself taken under the wing of another member of the team, Declan, a freelance event worker, who tells her stories of his own event mishaps to make her feel better.

Rachel is very busy as the lead for this event, and doesn't have the time to spend with Caity, but Declan seems tuned in to her and usually appears to assist her when something goes wrong. As she gains confidence, Caity discovers that she actually enjoys the work, despite the distractions of calls from her parents about job opportunities, her debt issues, and the worry over whether her ex is still following her. 

I enjoyed the characters of Caity and Declan, who we saw the most in the novel, and how we learned gradually of their situations. Caity is making a fresh start, never an easy thing, and we can see her grow here. I also enjoyed the travel aspect of the novel, learning more about Ireland. A fun read, with many touches of humour.  

Crescent Calling

Finished November 17

Crescent Calling by Nicole R. Taylor

This is the first book in The Crescent Witch Chronicles series. The main character is Skye Williams, a young woman from Australia who is dealing with the recent loss of her job and her boyfriend and spending time at her late father's beach house. While there, she is visited by a strange small Irishman who tells her that her estranged mother has died and left her everything she owns, which includes a house and a shop in Ireland. She must go to Ireland to inherit.

In the small town of Derrydun, she finds herself the owner of a successful new age shop with a capable Goth employee and a lovely small house. There is also a cat who seems quite comfortable staying with her every night.

She's still not sure whether she wants to stay or sell up and go back to Australia until she sees the attractive young Irishman who's helpful to all around town change into a fox in front of her. Boone came to town a few years ago and stayed with her aunt until moving into his own place. He gives her some information on her mother and her mother's death and lets her know that she's the last in a line of local witches known as Crescent Witch. He also lets her know about imminent threats to their community and what she might be expected to do to combat them. As she learns how to wield the powers she has inherited, she also finds herself growing roots into the community.

I enjoyed this light fantasy as well as the touch of romance it promises. Skye is strong and open and a woman who is kind at heart. The plot  is a good opener to the fantasy element and promises more in future books. 

Too Good to Be True

Finished June 6

Too Good to Be True by Sheila O'Flanagan

This novel is a combination of genres. Partly romance, partly women's fiction, it follows two Irish adults as they navigate whirlwind romance, the realities of living with someone else, family dynamics, and career issues. 

Carey Browne is a woman who works as an air traffic controller, and can handle unpredictable situations in her work. She lives with a co-worker, has a weakness for shoes, and is confident in herself. She and her friends from work party a lot, but they take their jobs seriously. When she takes some downtime to visit a former co-worker who now lives in New York City, she meets Ben Russell. Ben and his older sister Freya are close and after he had an up-and-down career experience in the tech field, they joined forces to run a wellness store. They now have several branches, and Ben has a meeting with a supplier in New York. There is chemistry between the two and after a few days together, Ben proposes marriage and Carey accepts. They make it real in Las Vegas. 

When they get home, they go back to their real lives, Carey moves in with Ben, and they break it to their families. Neither family takes it well. So that and the realities of living together, with Carey's work schedule that can have her working very early or very late, takes a toll on the new relationship. 

They also discover that neither of them have revealed all their relationships from the past, When exes start giving them a hard time about moving on, and they become aware of some of those secrets, Ben and Carey start to question everything about their relationship and emotions get very heated. 

We see things from both their viewpoints, and see their family dynamics, their dating history, and their fear of vulnerability. 

They both grow as a result, on both the personal and professional fronts, and we them move forward from just living their lives to planning their futures. I found this a quick read despite the length of the novel, and enjoyed the different storylines within the main story. 

Another Heartbeat in the House

Finished November 13

Another Heartbeat in the House by Kate Beaufoy

From the cover I thought this might be historical romance with a touch of mystery, but it was something with more depth than I expected. It is historical fiction, but deals with two time periods. The framing time period is late 1936 and early 1937. Here, Edie Chadwick is the main character, a young woman who works in publishing. This year had two tragedies for Edie, the death of her beloved dog and the rift in a long and close friendship with her friend Hilly. It is New Year's Eve as the book begins, and Edie is visited by another close friend, Ian Fleming, who she has known since she was a child. Yes, he is that Ian Fleming, but is a minor character here. After a couple of drinks in her flat, Ian convinces her to join him at a party he has been invited to. There, she runs into a distant relative, "uncle" Jack Frobisher and the conversation goes to a house he owns in Ireland. He and his family don't use it anymore and he needs someone to go over and shut the place up before selling it. 

After another tragic incident in Edie's life happens, she decides to take up Jack's offer and go to Ireland. She will be going through all the contents of the house, deciding what should go to auction and what should be kept or thrown away. She also plans to bring some of her copy-editing work so she doesn't fall too far behind. Ian shows up just before her train leaves and thrusts a dog on her, a Maltese with a pedigree. I love the way that she and the puppy have conversations over the course of the novel. 

In Ireland, she discovers handwritten pages in the attic, written by a woman who lived in the house in the 1840s, and that tell her story. She is a woman with ambition, one who intends to find a way to make a comfortable life for herself, but her plans find themselves getting more complicated than she intended and her life takes a different turn. The woman's name is Eliza Drury and she turns out to have a literary acquaintance that is someone who wrote a book considered a classic. As Edie learns more about Eliza, and the house itself, she finds herself learning about Ireland's history, the making of a novel, and about a woman who led a fascinating life. 

I found this novel engrossing in many ways, and enjoyed it immensely. 

Two for the Road

Finished November 27

Two for the Road by Roddy Doyle

This short novel is a follow-up to his book Two Pints, which is a conversation between two unnamed men in a pub. The conversations here begin in mid-July 2014 and continue through mid-March 2019. The conversations are short, and touch on current events from politics and social media to life events and music. As in most of Doyle's books, music is a well-loved subject, and here we often see commentary on the deaths of musicians, bands reuniting, and other news from that world. Political topics range from those in Ireland to more international ones, and the events touched on have the men making confidences of things from their own lives that touch on the same subjects, bring on memories both happy and sad, and give us insight into the commonalities that we all share. 

As always, a great and thoughtful read. 

The Unicorn

Finished September 23

The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch

This strange and eerie novel is set in a remote part of a country that may be Ireland, although it isn't clearly stated. Marion Taylor has answered an advertisement for a governess following an amicable but painful breakup. She is nearing 30 and unsure of whether her future holds a marriage or not. Part of why she found the advertisement appealing is the name of the home she is going to: Gaze Castle. But as the book opens, she finds that it is quite far from the nearest railway station and remote even from neighbours. She has uneasy feelings almost right away, fighting the urge to flee as she is driven to the home. 

The home is a rather ordinary, yet large house, not a castle, and she also soon finds that she hasn't been engaged to teach children, but rather to teach and be a companion for a woman similar in age to herself. There are other mysterious elements to the place, and she finds the roles of many of the other people there unclear. The woman she will work for is Hannah Crean-Smith, a woman who seems delicate in health, and never leaves the premises. The man who collected her, Gerald Scottow seems to be in charge, and may even be under orders to limit the activities and visitors to Mrs. Crean-Smith. 

She also finds that the husband of her employer is alive, but was injured badly in an incident that seems unclear on the cliffs near the house. One possibility is that his wife may have tried to kill him after being found in an act of infidelity. The chauffeur is Jamesie Evercreech, but he is also some sort of distant relative of Hannah's as is his sister Violet. Violet Evercreech seems to act as a housekeeper, with numerous "black maids with casts in their eyes and incomprehensible accents" that she seems to direct. There is also Denis Nolan, a man who seems to deal with animals as well as other unexpected tasks. 

The nearest neighbour is a recluse, an older man named Max Lejour and in the summer his daughter Alice and son Pip come to visit, as does a family friend Effingham Cooper. 

As Marion becomes more and more confused and unsettled by the atmosphere of the place, she thinks that she must make some sort of plan to free Hannah from this imprisonment. 

This is a story that relies on the geography and remoteness of the location, the odd characters, and the sense of foreboding that comes on Marion after encounters with certain people or elements. 

A book that draws you in, so that you need to know how things unfold. Murdoch is a master storyteller. 

The Transatlantic Book Club

Finished September 19

The Transatlantic Book Club by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

This novel is part of a series set in a small Irish town, but the only one in the series that I've read. The central characters here are Cassie Fitzgerald, a Toronto-born young woman who makes a living as a hairdresser, and has worked mostly on cruise ships so far in her career; and her Irish grandmother Pat Fitz. Before the book begins, Pat has lost her husband Ger to cancer. Cassie is on hand because she had accompanied her grandparents back to Ireland after they'd come to Canada to visit their two sons who had emigrated there. Also, before this book happens, Cassie and Pat had gone to Resolve, a town in the United States, where many people from their area of Ireland had emigrated, and where Pat had spent a summer years before, just before she got married.

Cassie is young and impulsive, but also kind and full of energy. She has arranged a part-time job as a hairstylist at a local spa/hotel, as well as one driving the library bus two days a week to villages in the area. This way, she explores the area a bit and gets to know some of the local people and begins friendships. She worries about her grandmother and how she will be on her own. 

Pat still lives above the butcher shop that her husband ran, although his holdings include the farm where they raised the meat, and other properties. She is also still close to her childhood friend Mary, whose husband Tom died a few years before. Only one of Pat's sons still lives in Ireland, Frankie, and she isn't close to him, and that relationship is explored some here. 

Mary's daughter Hanna runs the local library in Lissbeg, and it is through working at the library that Cassie gets the idea to set up a book club between Lissbeg and Resolve, connecting the people in the communities in new ways. She also has an interest in a young man in Resolve that she met while visiting with Pat, and is curious as to whether this is worth exploring. 

This book is slow-moving, and the various plots developed through the slow realization of the main characters around feelings and realizations. 

Haven

Finished April 18

Haven by Emma Donoghue

This is a story set long ago, around the year 600 AD. It takes place on the coast of Ireland, on a very small island. This was a time when monks were setting small settlements in remote places and this story is one of such a settlement. The story begins at the monastery of Cluain Mhic Nois (now known as Clonmacnoise) near the Riven Shannon in central Ireland. It is spring, just after Easter, and there are a number of visitors to the monastery, among them Artt, a scholar, priest, and hermit.Artt is very much an ascetic, extending the rules of fasting beyond what is the norm for his times and pushing himself away from any indulgence. He believes monks should spend their time fasting, praying, and working, and be celibate. 

A young monk Trian, still a teenager was the one to ferry him over from across the river and receive him by washing his feet. Trian is musical, handy on a pipe. Trian is also one quick to notice need and rush to meet it. He came to the monastery at the age of thirteen, given up by his family who had trouble supporting all in their family. 

Cormac is an man who came late to monkhood, after surviving a plague that killed his wife and children and then later a dispute with another clan. He was injured a brought to the monks for healing. He was a farmer, and builder, and is handy with a lyre, often called to entertain when that is needed. 

Late in the night after the feast Artt wakes the Abbot to tell him his dream, that he has been called to lead a small group (just himself and two other monks, one young and one old) to a small island to found a monastic retreat. The monks he saw in his dream are Cormac and Trian, and they both agree to go with him. 

They take little with them, keeping their boat as light as possible, the minimum of food and tools. They take a holy chest with the necessities for mass and for copying holy texts. Artt has culled the rest of their supplies, leaving behind the spare sail, whetstones, scrapers, and most of the iron tools, fishing spear, axe, most extra clothing, blankets, musical instruments, and many of the nicer bits of food like honey. 

The small group travel downriver and to the ocean and end up on a small island now known as Skellig Michael. The island is mostly rock, with many nests of puffins, auks, and other seabirds. As they settle in and find ways to gather the necessities, such as water and start a garden, they find much to challenge them. 

This is a book that looks at the hardship these men agree to for their faith, sees where they waver, and where decisions are made that will have impact later. This is a book that moves slowly, yet irrevocably forward. We share the monks' hope and despair, and find more than we imagined we would. 

Beautifully written, with scenes that will haunt you later. An excellent read. 

Life Without Children

Finished September 30

Life Without Children: Short Stories by Roddy Doyle

I always enjoy reading Roddy Doyle and this collection is an intriguing one. This book contains ten short stories, all taking place in Ireland during the pandemic, and all are around relationships.

Box Sets has a couple, Sam and Emer, reacting in their own ways to the pandemic. Sam has lost his job and doesn't muster the energy to look for a new one, instead losing himself in watching season after season of TV series, catching up on many he'd never watched when they came out. Emer is calm but removed. When Sam's frustration reaches a point where he finds himself having angry outbursts, this changes the dynamic and forces change on both of them.

Curfew has issues of health as well as bringing the male character memories of his own father.

Life without Children looks at a couple whose children have left home and how the pandemic changes the family dynamic.

Gone has alternating viewpoints of a couple where the wife has left the home just before the lockdown begins.

Nurse focuses on health and death in the context of a family.

Masks has a man walking through the streets, finding himself frustrated and disgusted by the discarded masks that he see everywhere and taking an unusual and provoking action as a result.

The Charger is told by a man who has come late to the ownership of a cellphone and, in the context of a stressful situation, finds himself focused on finding the phone charger, while he feels alone despite having all four of his daughters living back home during this time. The situation brings back the feelings from his childhood of abandonment.

The Funeral has Bob and Nell as a long-married couple with Bob's reaction to the death of his mother and the circumstances of his position as the responsible son.

Worms has Joe finding himself with earworms linked to specific places or tasks in his life, a quirk that at first he keeps to himself and then when his wife Thelma learns about it and joins in, finds himself reacting emotionally in a negative way until he realizes his underlying feelings towards her.

The last story, Five Lamps, has a man defying the lockdown and driving for hours to the city to look for his estranged son. He walks the streets, returning to his car each night, interacting with the shopkeepers and homeless as he plans on what to say to repair the relationship.

These stories show Doyle's skill with showing the complexities of human relationships, the emotions and resentments, the closeness and the frustration, all set within a very stressful time for everyone. A brilliant collection

The Mountains Wild

Finished April 13

The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

This is the first book in a mystery series featuring detective Maggie D'arcy who lives in Long Island with her teenage daughter Lilly. Twenty-three years ago, Maggie went to Dublin when her family was told that her cousin Erin was missing. Erin was a complicated person, who had disappeared for days before, but this felt different. Maggie was close to her cousin, though they'd had differences recently, and with her uncle's heart condition, she offered to go over to Ireland to talk to the police on behalf of the family and see what she could find out. 

Maggie is smart and drawn to details, and she soon finds a clue to her cousin's disappearance, but when the case hasn't resulted in anything conclusive after weeks, Maggie returns home to deal with other family issues. 

Now, twenty-three years later, the Dublin police have once again contacted her uncle to say they've found something new connected to the case. Maggie is now a senior police officer with many successful cases behind her, and once again offers to go on behalf of her uncle. She asks her ex-husband Brian to look after Lilly, and returns to the city she grew to love years ago. 

Going back to Dublin not only restarts the case of Erin's disappearance, but also other connections that Maggie made back then, ones to Erin's contacts and to the police involved in the case. 

With her own expertise in police work, Maggie aches to be involved in the case, but the locals don't want to allow that. Instead, she wanders the familiar streets, and retraces her steps from years ago, and contacts the people she met back then. 

There is a lot going on here, with secrets that reach far back into the past. There are also new faces that Maggie gets to know as she tries once again to find the answers to Erin's disappearance. This is a very interesting character that I'd like to see more of, and many interesting connections to other characters that seem long-lasting. The plot is intriguing and has moments of suspense. 

Dark Lies the Island

Finished December 19

Dark Lies the Island by Kevin Barry

This collection of short stories by the Irish writer Kevin Barry are all set in that country with the exception of the last one, Berlin Arkonaplatz. They are stories of everyday life, relationships, groups of friends, trials of fathering a teen daughter, new starts in life gone wrong, two ladies with ill intentions, a doctor past his prime, men in trouble with the law, mental health, and more.

They are stories where the characters are at the center, where the dialogue is key and real, and where the people are at moments in their life where things change for them, for good or for bad. 

These are stories of people who don't fit in, who don't feel comfortable in their own lives, who are looking for something else, something different. 

This is a book hard to put down and very worth the read. I liked them all for different reasons, and it is hard to choose a favourite, but it would likely be Fjord of Killary, for the descriptiveness of the scenes.

An Irish Hostage

Finished September 28

An Irish Hostage by Charles Todd

This mystery is part of the Bess Crawford series. It is the summer of 1919 and Bess is home waiting to make a decision about her future as she knows the hospital doesn't need all the nurses that they did during the war, and she doesn't want to take a job from someone who really needs one. Short term, she has been asked to be maid of honour by a fellow nurse that she rescued when their ship was attacked. Her friend, Eileen Flynn is from Ireland, as is her fiance Michael Sullivan, who has just been demobbed from the British Army. 

But things in Ireland are tense with the British looking to guard against more uprisings like the one that occurred during the war. Bess's parents are worried about her travelling across Ireland to attend the wedding. Bess suggests asking Simon's friend Captain Arthur Jackson, an American pilot to fly her directly to Eileen's family home instead. This is seized on as a good solution to the issue.

It is Bess's first flight and she loves it, but she finds on arrival that things are more difficult than anticipated. There are some in the community who resent the Irish that served in the British forces during the war, and there are rebels looking for opportunities to further their cause, some with more appetite for violence than others. Bess finds that Michael has disappeared, presumably kidnapped, and although Arthur argues that they leave, Bess cannot abandon her friend, and sends Arthur to let her family know and see what more can be discovered. 

As Bess learns more about Eileen's family, from her rebel leader cousin Terrance who is supposed to give Eileen away at the ceremony to the local priest who is a close confidant of Eileen's grandmother, she finds she needs her nursing skills, her sharp mind, and her strategic intuition to be able to cope with everything that happens. Luckily, besides Terrance, she soon has another ally from an unexpected source.

This book gives insight into the complex Irish political situation of the time, without demonizing any of the players. Bess shows her strength, both of mind and body as she often does and stays calm even when things get very tense. I enjoy her as a character and enjoyed this setting and situation as well.

Finbar's Hotel

Finished March 31

Finbar's Hotel devised and edited by Dermot Bolger, written by Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton, Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O'Connor, and Colm Toibin

This linked set of stories are all occurring on the last Thursday the Dublin hotel will be open. The building is a rebuild of one that burnt down thirty years ago, and except for the longlasting carpet, it hasn't aged well. A Dutch firm has recently purchased it and will be razing it to build a new hotel.

Each story here is centered around one room on the first floor of the hotel, with the occupant(s) and their  actions making that story. Two of the hotel staff, the manager and the night porter have somewhat larger roles in the stories, reappearing in more than one. Both of these men have been at the hotel for years, long before the fire that destroyed the earlier building. One, Simon the night porter, because he has worked here for that long, and the other, Johnny Farrell the manager, because his father became a part-owner in the hotel years before and he played here as a child. 

Interestingly, the writers here have chosen not to identify which of them wrote which portions of the book. 

One room has a man who is staying in a hotel room for the first time in his life. He can't identify the reasons that led him to this night, and he feels awkward at times, but determined to see the experience through.

Another room has two sisters who haven't seen each other in years. One left Ireland decades earlier when she was just seventeen and now her sister wants to meet to talk about her mother and dig into her reasons for leaving, but will she finally tell the truth?

In a third room, a young man has smuggled in a cat, but his purpose for doing that is unclear, and the outcome up in the air until the end of his tale. 

Another room is taken by a man the night manager is sure he recognizes although the name on the register is not one he knows. Will he confront the lodger to verify his identification and check the motives behind the stay?

A woman in one room is staying there as part of a series of hotel room visits across the country, all related to a medical diagnosis she's been given and a betrayal she finds hard to face. 

Another woman is staying at the hotel based on a memory of an early boyfriend and how they happened upon that long ago fire. She is thinking of both the discovery of her father as one of the firefighters on scene and the men that have passed through her life.

The last person to have their story here is a criminal engaged in a crime out of his comfort zone and determining his next steps. 

I enjoyed seeing how these characters lives bumped up against each other, usually very briefly, and how this night meant something different to each one, but was important to them in some way. 

Snow

Finished February 4

Snow by John Banville

This is the first book in a series, that is also related to another series by the author that he published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. Here, the main character is a detective inspector with the Garda, the Irish police, and the time is late in 1957. The book begins just a few days before Christmas.

At the manor house Ballyglass, near the village of , in the county of Wexford, a priest is murdered one night. His is discovered by the woman of the house who often wanders in the night, and with the local officer under the weather, DI John Strafford is called in. Like the house owners, Strafford is Protestant, but the priest is Catholic as are most of the people who live in the area. 

The woman of the house, the second wife of the owner, Mr. Osborne is unreliable and often medicated. Osborne and his two teenage children all claim to be sound sleepers who heard nothing. The staff in the house live out, and there seems to be no forced entry. As Strafford delves in the lives of these people, and into the past of the priest, he must also look at his own life and his lack of direction, as well as deal with the power of the church, which is strong in this country. The church, it's history of coverups and abuse have a major role in this story, as they do in reality in many stories. 

The weather plays a role in the book as well, as one can guess from the title. Strafford is woefully unprepared, having only shoes and a thin coat, and he is often borrowing pieces of clothing, offered or not to venture out into the snowy landscape. The weather also affects the actions of others, from the priest staying over at the Osborne's due to the weather, to the delay in assistance arriving.

There are interesting elements of sexuality that also come up several times in the book. 

As always Banville's writing is wonderful, and this story develops slowly, with a few red herrings thrown in for the reader to consider, and a few clues that seem to lie dormant before being followed.

Strafford is an interesting character, who seems to have trouble focusing, and doesn't seem to take notes during his interviews and so loses track of what he knows. It will be interesting to see how he develops in future books.

Rosewater and Soda Bread

Finished December 26
Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran

This novel takes place in small town Ireland but the main characters are immigrants from Iran, three sisters that live together and run a cafe. 

The oldest sister Marjan Aminpour is the heart of the business and the driving force. She has guilt from her absence from the family during a crisis, one that led to deep sadness for her middle sister Bahar. She has never told her sisters where she was during those days she was missing, that she'd been active in the actions against the Shah's government in Iran, partly due to her love for a young man, and that the printing operation they were running had been raided and she'd been in prison and been tortured. It is this experience that compelled her to focus on her sisters, and when Bahar returned from her ordeal, it was her that organized their flight from Iran to England, and now to Ireland. 

Her friendship in London with another Irish transplant, a woman her own age whose mother came to Ireland from Italy is what brought them to this town a year ago. Her subsequent friendship with the mother, Estelle, brings her into another situation with a girl running from a bad situation. We don't learn her whole story until near the end of the novel, but it is a compelling one. 

We also see the role of the old guard, the ones that resent change and newcomers and the loss of their power in the community. Here, this is personified by the widow Dervla who lives across the street from the Aminpours and she spends most of her day at her front window watching and judging. She has a group of other women who bring her gossip from further afield that she then tries to act on. 

The youngest sister, Layla is a confident schoolgirl, in love with a local boy and wanting to control her own life and fate through her informed decisions. Marjan must learn how to trust Layla to make those decisions, and also how to help accept Bahar's decisions to move forward with her life in an unexpected direction. 

There are other things going on in the town, from the local priest who becomes a pirate DJ on the side, the local doctor, an immigrant from Pakistan who must walk a careful line to stay out of trouble, and the prodigal landowner who has returned to remake the family manor as a destination inn and restaurant. 

And among it all are the seasonal celebrations like Bonfire Night and All Hallows Eve, and of course the food, both Iranian and Irish. Lucky for the reader, several recipes are included here. 

The Sweetest Fruits

Finished August 6
The Sweetest Fruits by Monique Truong

This book goes deep into the life of Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn's life through four women that were important in his life. Hearn was a writer I wasn't aware of before reading this book, and he doesn't come across in a very positive way here. I was definitely interested in all four of the women who tell the story though.
The first woman to appear is Elizabeth Bisland. Bisland was a journalist and traveller who wrote a biography of Hearn that her portions draw from. The two met when they both lived in New Orleans in the early 1880s. Interestingly, I had recently been made aware of Hearn and her travels through a book that showed her and Nellie Bly circumnavigating the world in opposite directions, Liz and Nellie. I love it when these serendipitous connections happen! Sections of her biography are interspersed between the accounts of the other three women.
The second woman is the first one in Lafcadio's life, his mother, Rosa Antonia Cassimati. Her life was a difficult one. She was born and lived on Cythera, Her mother died when she was young, she was uneducated despite being from a well-off family, and once she hit puberty her father severely restricted her life, not wanting to pay a dowry for her. She was being groomed for the life of a nun when she was able to use her unsupervised visits to a local church to make a connection with an Irish officer from the fort nearby. Once she became pregnant and her father turned her out, she moved with Hearn when he was transferred to Lefkada, and they married there after the birth of their first son. Lafcadio (Patrick) was the second son, Rosa and the young boy moved to Ireland when he was still a toddler. After a cold welcome, she moved in with Hearn's aunt Sarah, but never settled and moved back to Greece, leaving Lafcadio with Sarah. She gave birth to their third son, James, on the trip back. This was the last she saw of her son.
The third woman was Alethea (Mattie) Foley, a young African American woman that Hearn met when he lived in Cincinnati. Their marriage was against the law in Ohio, and the two had issues before eventually parting. This was an interesting section to the book, giving a glimpse into the life of a young black woman in Cincinnati during this time and a sense of her independence and fortitude. I really liked her. She was a good woman with a sense of her own worth.
The last woman was Koizuni Setsu, a Japanese woman of a samurai family. Setsu married Hearn and he eventually took a Japanese name and was adopted into her family to stay in Japan, which he would not have been able to do as a foreigner. Setsu was educated and a skilled seamstress and weaver, with her family in the textile business. Under the Japanese regime that began just after her birth, the samurai families lost their status, and the family struggled throughout her life. The couple had four children, and most of Hearn's time was spent teaching English or writing about Japanese myth and culture. Hearn died in Japan in 1904 of a heart attack at the age of 54. Setsu eventually wrote her own book about her husband.
I learned a lot about Hearn, but really enjoyed learning about these women and liked how the characters of his mother and wives were brought to life here.

Bina

Finished March 26
Bina by Anakana Schofield

This novel is unlike anything I've ever read. I loved the writing and the character right from the stary, and I could barely put it down. I've already talked it up to one of my co-workers.
Bina is the narrator of this tale, writing her thoughts, her warnings, her remarkings on bits of paper she finds around her house, such as the back of receipts. She is talking to the reader, and makes that clear a few times by what she writes. The book is divided into titles sections, some quite short and others very long. The first one, a short one is Warnings and the first page of that makes clear that that is indeed what this is meant to be. The second page of this section has Bina introducing herself, and one of the first things she makes clear is her name. It is pronounced Bye-na, not Bee-na.
This information is followed by an address to the reader

I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you, not to reassure you

Bina repeats herself a lot, wanting to make clear the message that she is trying to get across to the reader, yet still trying not to implicate herself in anything she shouldn't.
As her story gradually becomes more clear, you begin to understand what she has been accused of, and what she has actually done.
I liked her. She is feisty and wants to make sure others don't make the same mistakes she made. She is looking back, recognizing where she made a wrong move, and regretting some of the things she did. Bina is a nice woman, a woman that genuinely cares about people, and that is both her strength and her weakness. She knows that she has been taken advantage of, but isn't sure what she should have done to get out of it, only how she could have not got into it in the first place.
This is a story of people. People like Bina, who care about other people, and people like Eddie, who don't. Bina is a survivor, but one who struggles greatly.
The book has footnotes that are helpful in providing additional explanation, with some reaching back to a previous book by the author that I haven't read, but am now intrigued to.
Her first two warnings are about letting in men into your life. One comes via a ditch, and one comes via a door, and neither one led to good times for Bina.
So that is what the next two sections of the book are Ditch and Door. When Bina needs to think, or escape a situation, her refuge is her bed, or in the Irish language, Leaba, thus the name of the next section. She prepares herself well when she enters her bed, as she is not doing this for the first time in her life. As she herself writes,

When I go to bed, I really go to bed. Alone. All alone. There's no one invited in. There's no one to invite in. The first time I went to bed I didn't get back up for two months. This time I haven't counted. 

The last section, a long one, is Remarkings, and again she is clear about this. She writes

My name is still Bina and these are my remarkings.
Remarkings are different from warnings.
But you will find warnings within the remarkings
If you are careful enough to notice them.
And if you don't, I can't help you.
It's how it has to be.

As you can perhaps tell from the quotes above, the book has bits written in free verse, a nice way to place the words that makes them even more meaningful. Sometimes Bina refers to herself by name as if she is talking about someone else. Other times she talks in first person. There is a lot of beautiful wordplay going on here, and I loved it. I can hear her voice in my head, and I'm listening.

Lying in Wait

Finished March 19
Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

This psychological suspense novel starts with a crime, the murder of a young woman, but only gradually reveals the motive as we get deeper and deeper into the book. The viewpoint alternates between a few characters. Lydia Fitzsimons is a middle aged woman, who I understood had issues right from the start. She seems a bit detached from the people around her, in her own little world. But she's definitely not stupid, as some of her choices show.
Laurence is her only son, and as the book begins, he is in high school. He's a young man who doesn't fit in well with his peers, and has no real friends. He's overweight, and can be both perceptive and disingenuous. When he does finally make a friend, he chooses someone who is also unpopular, but for very different reasons.
Karen Doyle is a woman raised in very different circumstances. Her family didn't have much, but she was close to her older sister Annie, the rebellious one in the family, and knew her parents cared about her, even if they weren't demonstrative about it.
The two families are drawn together, because the woman that either Lydia or her husband Andrew killed (you're never really quite sure whose action was the final one) was Karen's sister Annie.
As the story develops and time passes, we see the characters in different ways, and I changed how I felt about them as the story unfolded.
An interesting read.