In honor of the wearin’ o’ the green, this month’s Reading Theme is Irish fiction.
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The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy
The novel tells the story of Kathleen de Burca, an Irish travel writer living in London, who throws over her life there to return to Ireland and write a book. What she is chasing down is an old scandal - an affair in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland between the wife of an English landlord and her Irish servant. But what she is really after is an understanding of passion itself... (Publisher’s summary)
A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
...An uneasy group of relations are living under one roof at Montefort, a decaying manor in the Irish countryside. When twenty-year-old Jane finds in the attic a packet of love letters written years ago by Guy, her mother’s one-time fiance who died in World War I, the discovery has explosive repercussions. It is not clear to whom the letters are addressed, and their appearance begins to lay bare the strange and unspoken connections between the adults now living in the house. Soon, a girl on the brink of womanhood, a mother haunted by love lost, and a ruined matchmaker with her own claim on the dead wage a battle that makes the ghostly Guy as real a presence in Montefort as any of the living. (Publisher’s summary)
In the Woods by Tana French
Detective Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, investigate the murder of a 12-year-old girl near a Dublin suburb. The case resonates with similarities to a murder committed twenty years before that involved two children and the young Ryan. (Publisher’s summary)
Loving / Living / Party Going by Henry Green
Henry Green explored class distinctions through the medium of love. This volume brings together three of his novels contrasting the lives of servants and masters (Loving); workers and owners, set in a Birmingham iron foundry (Living); and the different lives of the wealthy and the ordinary, (Party Going). (Publisher’s summary)
Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas by Morgan Llywelyn
An authentic re-creation of sixteenth-century Ireland provides the backdrop for the saga of real-life Irish chieftain Grace O'Malley, who took part in a lifelong struggle against England's Queen Elizabeth I. (Publisher’s summary)
Bard by Morgan Llywelyn
This is the tale of the coming of the Irish to Ireland, and of the men and women who made that emerald isle their own. (Publisher’s summary)
Catholics by Brian Moore
In the not-too-distant future, the Fourth Vatican Council has abolished private confession, clerical dress, and the Latin Mass, and opened discussions about a merger with Buddhism. Authorities in Rome are embarrassed by publicity surrounding a group of monks who stubbornly celebrate the old Mass in their island abbey off the coast of Ireland. The clever, assured Father James Kinsella is dispatched to set things right. At Muck Abbey he meets Abbot Tomás, a man plagued by doubt who nevertheless leads his monks in the old ways. In the hands of the masterly Brian Moore, their confrontation becomes a subtle, provocative parable of doubt and faith. (Publisher’s summary)
My Dream of You by Nuala O’Faolain
The novel tells the story of Kathleen de Burca, an Irish travel writer living in London, who throws over her life there to return to Ireland and write a book. What she is chasing down is an old scandal - an affair in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland between the wife of an English landlord and her Irish servant. But what she is really after is an understanding of passion itself... (Publisher’s summary)
Ashworth Hall by Anne Perry
In 19th-century England a meeting of Irish Protestants and Catholics to discuss home rule for Ireland is disrupted by murder. Scotland Yard's Thomas Pitt and his wife try to find the killer before he strikes again and scuttles the talks, the purpose of which is to bring peace to Ireland. (Publisher’s summary)
A Shower of Summer Days by May Sarton
The Irish estate home Dene’s Court has been empty for years—its icy visage, shuttered windows, and overgrown tennis court are a burden for its caretakers and a curiosity for the nearby townspeople. And so the announcement that Violet Dene Gordon and her husband, Charles, are on their way back from British Burma to settle in the long-dormant estate sends a ripple of excitement through the sleepy village… Anxiety, tempers, and long-buried emotions flare as the estate’s new residents search for a sense of belonging and peace between its hallowed and serene walls. (Publisher’s summary)
An Excess of Love by Cathy Cash Spellman
The story of two sisters, daughters of an Irish Protestant lord, whose lives go separate ways when one marries an aspiring poet and revolutionary and the other marries an aristocrat but falls in love with an Irish freedom fighter. (Publisher’s summary)
Trinity by Leon Uris
The "terrible beauty" that is Ireland comes alive in this mighty epic that re-creates that Emerald's Isle's fierce struggle for independence. Trinity is a saga of glories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies, lived by a young Catholic rebel and the beautiful and valiant Protestant girl who defied her heritage to join him. Leon Uris has painted a masterful portrait of a beleaguered people divided by religion and wealth--impoverished Catholic peasants pitted against a Protestant aristocracy wielding power over life and death. (Publisher’s summary)
Four Letters of Love: A Novel by Niall Williams
William Coughlan abandons his wife and his son to paint the pictures he believes God has commanded. He disappears into the west of Ireland on a mission, following a prompting that may or may not have been real to daub the canvas and stare at the Atlantic light. On an island off the west coast, a boy gifted in music falls mute and lame while playing with his sister. It is a moment that scars the heart of Isabel Gore, as she helps her brother Sean home across the island to meet the disbelief and sorrow of her parents. Two moments, two stories, each apparently as random and uncertain as the other. Four Letters of Love brings them together in a lyrical effusion of bracing freshness and power. This is a novel about destiny, acceptance, the tragedies and miracles of everyday life, and about how all our stories meet in the end.. (Publisher’s summary)
Featured books do not reflect the views of Reeves Memorial Library or Seton Hill University.
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