Review: An Irish Country Welcome: An Irish Country Novel

An Irish Country Welcome: An Irish Country Novel by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Happily there is a novella to close out the series. Had thought this was the absolute end. The novella is Yuletide so imagine it will tie up the tale once and for all, although this installment has pretty much set the paths the main characters will take once there is no more written chronical to keep us up to date. A marriage, a birth, a new partner, older folks slowing down and making room for the younger ones to take their places. Momentarily, the factional unrest of Northern Ireland has ceased, but as Taylor said, he did not want to take Ballybucklebo any closer to the Troubles. For that his readers are grateful. For ever after we can imagine our friends there continuing on in peace and love and cooperation. It is a happy ending all round.

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Review: An Irish Country Family

An Irish Country Family by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Held on to this book for over a year-- just did not want to read it too soon, knowing that there is only one more book in the series. Taylor decided to stop because the time line had brought him to the turbulent Troubles and he did not want to ignore them, nor did he want his characters to become embroiled in them. So, in this book, he focuses on Barry Laverty's last year as Houseman alternately with is current status as a married man in Balleybucklebo. He and Sue are in the throes of seeming infertility and much of the advances in female medicine are explained as the tests and physician confersations ensue to determine why this young couple does not seem able to conceive.

Time is moving on for the residents and their families and friends in this volume. Some of our favorites die, some marry, some find new positions, others new homes but through it all the news of conflict between Catholics and Protestants cannot be ignored. Yet, the nastiness and violence of it has not reached this little village and the residents wish to celebrate their closeness and ability to rise above this difference. As one man tells his Protestant beau of his Catholic daughter, I cannot let the fact that our two families worship the same God in different ways come between you two. Not a direct quote but close enough to relay the gist of this story.

I've come to love these people and though my Catholic Irish grandmother and her son, my father, would not exactly share that sentiment, having a more personal experience with the British Protestants in their Irish life, I am removed from that and love the way Patrick Taylor has created a fictional place where all is serene and accepting. I will miss it and its inhabitants very much.
Now to the final book, alas!

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Review: The Confession

The Confession by John Grisham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is divided into three sections--the crime and arrest, the last minute efforts to put a stay on the execution of an innocent man, the aftermath of the death. While the first two sections were interesting they were excessively long, repetitive and ultimately boring though the result was heart-breaking and the situation from the very first unbelieveably mishandled and manipulated. It was difficult to read--not so much because of the story line which was engrossing, but because the need to make a book of 400 pages rather than 250 created a desire to just get on with it. The last section, the aftermath--what happened with the victim and her family, the second victim and his family and all the legal beagles and politicians as well as the real killer--was interesting and was read quickly. The sense that none of it--the book, the crime, the resolution--resulted in any real change was the keaviest blow of all and unfortunately more real than fiction.

The low star rating was primarily due to the writing rather than the plot or message. Padding with excessive prose to create the proper length for " literature " does not always work. He's written better books.

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