Gracelin O'Malley

August 13, 2001
The Troubles are harrowingly described in this finely wrought tale of an Irish beauty married above her station to an English landlord. Grace is the light of her household and only 16 when she is married off to Bram Donnelly, the lord of the manor. Her crippled brother, Sean, hates to see her go, knowing that his friend Morgan McDonagh loves her. She quickly realizes that Bram is a cruel, abusive drunk with a shady past, and that she does not fit in his world. Grace gives birth to twins—a boy and a girl—but only the girl survives, much to her husband's displeasure. When the potato blight hits and starving people come to the estate for food, Bram shows his true colors, not only refusing to help, but murdering some of them and turning his wrath upon Grace for feeding them. When he realizes he could lose the manor, he hatches a scheme with his mistress to come up with a male heir. Tensions escalate among his suffering tenants, and he knows he's a marked man—he even rides his property with his young daughter tied to his back to keep from being shot. Woven into the story is a subplot involving Sean, Morgan and other desperate peasants who have begun to talk of revolution. Grace, somehow stronger than ever, is determined to help. The searing conditions of the Irish famines, exacerbated by the unspeakable greed and brutality of the English, come to grim life in this realistic tale—too realistic for some, perhaps—but Moore's refusal to ignore the stark plight of the Irish and her lyrical, pitch-perfect prose raise this book far above the romance genre and make for historical fiction at its finest. Agent, Jean Naggar. (Aug. 7)Forecast:An appended interview with the author, attractive cover art and an accessible price make this a good candidate for book group reading.