The Dark Hours by Amy Jordan - a debut thriller set in Cork

In this debut, a retired detective is forced to revisit her most traumatic case when two young women are killed in eerily similar circumstances. Retired Garda Julia Harte lives modestly in a secluded Irish village with her dog, trying not to think about the murderer who destroyed her life back in 1994.  Even when she learns he died in prison, Julia cannot relax and she is startled to get a call from her one-time chief superintendent, Des Riordan. He asks her to return to Cork to help with the new investigation, in case it is a copycat crime.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch – Reading Ireland Month 2025

After Eilish Stack answers the door one night to find two policemen asking for her husband, she slowly begins to realize nothing will be the same for her family. Her husband’s job seems innocuous – he is an administrator for the Teachers’ Union of Ireland but these men are investigating an allegation against him:

Long Island by Colm Tóibín – 15/20 Books of Summer

In Brooklyn (2009), Eilis Lacey was encouraged by her sister Rose to leave her small town in Ireland for better employment prospects in New York. She finds a job in a department store and takes bookkeeping classes at night but is lonely. Eventually, she began attending Friday night dances with a friend and meets an Italian-American plumber. When she gets bad news from home that Rose has died, Tony persuades her to get married secretly before she returns to Ireland to be with her mother.

Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman - Reading Ireland Month 2024

Title: Daughter of Lir
Author: Diana Norman
Publication: Headline Books, paperback, 1988
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 12th century Ireland

Description: Taken from Ireland and abandoned at a French convent in the Loire Valley at 6, Finola is renamed Sister Boniface and brought up by the nuns, then at 18 is chosen to be Abbess of Kildare in Ireland. Her focus on her new Abbey and not the warring factions around it is disastrous and she makes a serious enemy, Dermot of Leinster.

Foster by Claire Keegan

Title: Foster
Author: Claire Keegan
Publication: Grove Press, hardcover, originally published in 2010
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Ireland

Description: One summer, a young girl is brought by her father to stay with relatives on a farm while her mother is pregnant. She arrives dusty and timid but the Kinsellas make her welcome and slowly she gains confidence.

Haunted Ground by Erin Hart #ReadingIreland2023

Title: Haunted Ground
Author: Erin Hart
Publication: Scribner, hardcover, 2003
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: When farmers cutting turf in a peat bog uncover a well-preserved woman’s body, the pathologist refers it to Cormac Maguire, an archeologist at University College Dublin and Dr. Nora Gavin in the anatomy department at Trinity College Medical School.

The Winter Guest by W.C. Ryan #ReadingIreland2023

Title: The Winter Guest
Author: W.C. Ryan
Publication: Arcade Publishing, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Mystery
Setting: Ireland, 1921

Description: After an ordinary evening of cards and conversation, Maud Prendeville, Lord Kilcolgan’s daughter, and two companions are killed in an IRA ambush, yards from her home in the Irish countryside.

The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Title: The Mountains Wild
Author: Sarah Stewart Taylor
Publication: Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s, hardcover 2020
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Dublin

Description: Twenty-three years ago, Maggie D’Arcy’s cousin Erin disappeared in Ireland so she flew from Long Island to Dublin to represent the family and find out what was going on.

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan: for Reading Ireland Month 2022

Title: The Good Turn
Author: Dervla McTiernan
Publication: Blackstone Publishing, trade paperback, 2021
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: Three separate storylines are deftly brought together in the most recent book by Dervla McTiernan, an Irish writer who now lives in Australia. The story begins with Anna and her suddenly mute 9-year-old, clearly in trouble.

The Christmas Party by Karen Swan

Title: The Christmas Party
Author: Karen Swan
Publication: Pan Books, paperback, 2019
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Setting: Present-day Ireland

Description: When their father dies unexpectedly, sisters Ottilie (Ottie), Philippa (Pip), and Wilhelmina (Willow) are devastated, and the way he left the estate causes even more angst.

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard - setting a trap for a killer

Title: The Nothing Man
Author: Catherine Ryan Howard
Publication: Blackstone Publishing, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Suspense
Setting: 21st century Ireland

Description: When Eve Black was 12, a man broke into her house and killed her parents and little sister. Eve survived only because she was in the bathroom.

Thicker Than Water by Madeleine Polland - atmospheric suspense in Ireland

Title: Thicker Than Water
Author: Madeleine Polland (1918-2005)
Publication: Pyramid Books, paperback, 1966 (originally published in 1965)
Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Setting: Ireland

Description: When Veronica learns her grandmother, from whom she has been estranged since adolescence, is dying and has asked for her, she leaves London and heads to her deceased father’s childhood Irish home, Hollymount, on the border of Galway and Mayo.

The Searcher - slow paced suspense from Tana French

Title: The Searcher
Author: Tana French
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Suspense

Description: When Cal Hooper decides to get away from it all – the senseless violence of 25 years as a Chicago policeman, a bad divorce, a daughter who has moved to Seattle and barely speaks to him, he buys a run-down cottage in a small village on the west side of Ireland anticipating that fixing it up will keep him busy for years.

Bookshelf Traveling - August 7

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a pile of books on the floor that you keep meaning to read or at least make space for in a bookcase.

Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

Title: Hungry Hill
Author: Daphne du Maurier
Publication: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1943, hardcover
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Ireland, 1820-1920

Plot: This is a multi-generational saga following the fortunes of an Irish mine-owning family, who are cursed by the peasants who once owned their land.  The book consists of five sections, each focused on a different generation as the feud continues.   

The Heritage (Book Review)

Title: The Heritage

Author: Frances Parkinson Keyes (pronounced to rhyme with size)

Publication Information: Hardcover, McGraw-Hill, 1968

Genre: Historical Fiction

Plot: 1882. Peter Bradford, an indulged member of a prominent Irish-American Boston family, is traveling to Ireland to visit his great-uncle, James O’Toole, the Earl of Cloneen, whose heir he is. On the train en route, he meets a beautiful young woman, falls instantly in love, and they spend the night together. Desperate attempts to find her the next morning are unsuccessful. When Peter reaches Ireland, he has two shocks: his uncle has just died, and his uncle’s much-younger widow is Anne, the woman with whom he just spent the night. Deeply ashamed of her infidelity, Anne will barely speak to Peter, but there is an added complication: if she is pregnant with a son, their child will displace his own father as the new earl!

What I liked: I remembered this book while watching Downton Abbey because of the issue about the heir, and wanted to reread it right away.