Tag: Ireland

Review at Dear Author

June 8, 2024 / Kaetrin / 0 Comments

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of The Irish Goodbye by Amy Ewing. It was… okay.

Monthly Mini Review

The Navy SEAL’s Holiday Fling by Zara Keane – C+ While I have most of the Ballybeg series on my TBR, this one is the first of Ms. Keane’s books I’ve actually read. It’s book 3 in her Ballybeg Bad Boys spin-off series. Divorced former Navy SEAL Liam Ryan has been working undercover for Trident Securities in Ballybeg but his case has finished and he’s on his way home to the USA for Christmas. He hasn’t seen his four year old daughter, Meggie, in seven months and he misses her badly. However, when he is on the way to the airport, he gets a call from his boss; there has been a bomb threat from a terrorist known only as “The Ghost”. The threat is credible and there is reason to think he might actually be in Ireland. Liam is the only person alive who has seen The Ghost; he’s the only man who can identify him to police.

The Ghost is a morality terrorist. He targets adult stores and those who have used the services of prostitutes. His target this time is Blush Shoppe, a multinational adult store chain which has just opened in Ireland. As it happens, Liam knows the manager of the new Cork store, Jill Bekele. Jill and he met when he was undercover and had a brief fling. She is extremely surprised to find that the man she knew as Jean-Baptiste, a French chef, is actually a former SEAL from the States. She is initially very unhappy to see Liam but when he thwarts an attempt on her life, she decides maybe hearing him out is a good idea.

Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale, narrated by Nicholas Boulton

January 28, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This one is from my own audiobook library. I listened over Christmas as a special gift to myself.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) As a lovely heiress, Roderica Delamore should be a prize catch–except for her shameful secret. She has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her. Even her family and close friends can’t hide from her strange gift. Knowing that she can never marry, for no man could bear it, Roddy still longs hopelessly for a family of her own. Until she meets the man she’s been waiting for–the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious Irish aristocrat whose thoughts are entirely closed to her.

The impoverished Devil Earl is damned in society by dark rumor and innuendo, and, for all she knows, he could be a liar, a rogue, or much, much worse. But Roddy must dance with him at midnight on All Hallows Eve, and entrust her life–and her heart–to a riveting stranger, called by his torment into the faerie mists to discover what she most fears about herself and her own magic.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I read this book ages ago and it was originally published in the 1980s. I had fond memories of it. Listening to it, the story didn’t feel dated – or, at least, it felt dated in the time it was set, which is late Georgian England and Ireland. It’s quite an unusual book and different to Kinsale’s other romances in that it incorporates paranormal aspects. Roddy Delamore can hear the thoughts of others and for her entire life, this has set her apart. People see her as a freak and she feels she will have no life of her own as no husband will want her. When she happens to meet Faelan Savigar, the Earl of Iveragh, he is the only person she’s ever come across who’s mind is closed to her. It is pretty much that which decides her on him for her husband. She is wealthy and he needs money to repair his broken down estate. He is 35 and she is only 19 and very pretty and he can’t quite understand his good fortune to have attracted her but he is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
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