If you are interested in the story between Irish and Mexicans...its ok
341933
If you are interested in the story between Irish and Mexicans...its  ok, theres a lot of history backround and valuable information.
3995150
I expected to read about a famous crime family or become involved with the early history of how New York was shaped by multicultural people from Europe. This book was a good read and was interesting but it was a sweet and tender about a family that struggled in New York with some want-to-be gangster types. Nothing really etraordinary or anything mind blowing. Just tender reporting about one's family,syrupy and cute!
3057081
I enjoyed this book. It was an interesting look into Mexican culture, and a bicultural marriage. I don't regret having read it.
4096577
There are 2 parts to this book.  The first part is a fictional story of two friends.  It was just ok. There were not too many elements about St. Patrick's Day.  The second part is non-fiction.  It includes the history of St. Patrick along with fabulous pictures.  The second part was informative and enjoyable.
1760259
A somewhat different slant on the Viking conflicts in Ireland.
1654795
Ireland of 1755 was ravaged by famine and a way of life was further destroyed by the brutal occupation of the British. For Darcy and her brother, Liam McBride, life in Kerry was hand-to-mouth; their family died during the Great Frost and Hunger of 1740. But they were survivors. When villagers were caught smuggling French brandy traded for wool, the men were hanged, Darcy was put on a conscription ship and sold in sexual servitude to a British officer in the colonies.

The first part of the story depicts how Irish Catholics had to fight to practice their religion, and to survive. Amanda got this part right: "the British had imposed severe constraints on every facet of a Catholic's life. No Catholic could vote, buy land or worship openly." And "the British paid paltry sums for the Irishman's wool. The government allowed the Irish to trade with no other country but Great Britain..."

The second half of the story describes how Irish Catholic peasants, divested of their homes, and land, were conscripted into servitude by the British. Being an indentured servant in the New World, meant one was a slave, with no rights. But Darcy makes it a brave new world with her fortitude and will to survive even though Massachusetts was still the frontier and the British-French Indian wars were in full swing.

This is a story of belief and determination where faith in God motivates and informs the characters, but it's not a "Christian" love story. The strong protagonist is passionate and courageous. However, i got rather tired of hearing about Darcy's amazing green eyes. it has some poorly written dialogue, there are missing words, punctuation, paragraphs, and pages. It's not evenly paced.

One reader commented that Amanda Hughes draws a historically-challenged timeline of Famine Ireland and pre-revolutionary America. Another reader put it: "The transition to the New World was interesting, but somewhat unauthenticly staged."

I wonder if some of the confusion lies in the fact that several readers erroneously assumed that the famine Amanda Hughes refers to--was the Great Famine, An Gorta Mr of 1845. But she's actually referring to an earlier famine. The Irish Famine of 1740-1741 was called Bliain an ir, the Year of the Slaughter, (caused by extreme weather and poor harvests), not the Great Hunger (caused by a potato blight). By 1755, there was little by way of food. I quibble: "the repressive system" didn't cause the failure of crops--the weather did; coal was scarce and peat was the only source of heat. It was also called the year of no summer.

I had some trouble getting past the introduction: the author informs us that the heroine's name, Darcy, meaning 'dark' i(from the Gaelic). Dubh is dark in Irish. No way to get Darcy from that. D'arcy (the archer) is an Irish surname from Strongbow's Norman invasion, not a girl's first name. There are other anachronisms, many threads and storylines.

An ambitious amazing debut novel with engaging characters. An epic adventure, it is not light reading or a fluffy romance. The author bit off more than she could chew. As another reader wrote: "the author broke every writing rule simply because she clearly did not know them." The story would have better served if it were split it into two books.
1342590
This is a nice chronological depiction of Irish history. Additional background information would make it better
2707182
This was a fairly nice read which was interesting to me because my parents and grandparents were in this area during the bootlegging days. Know at least a couple of families with money who got their start running whiskey into Washingtn  from Canada.

The book jumps around alot more than I would like. It starts it 1916, goes to 1908, then WWI, and so on. If you can put up with that you should enjoy the book and the price is pretty reasonable.
3208213
For those who love Ireland- I didn't feel this story bringing me back to the country fell in love with as a young adult. The storyline was a little far fetched and simple.... but it wasn't terrible
3321483
I enjoy reading books set in another culture (Puerto Rico). I know enough Spanish to help me through a book where that language is used frequently. I should probably note that those without a ready knowledge of basic Spanish might be frustrated. This was a fast read, but a bit disappointing. I enjoyed&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Baker-s-Daughter-A-Novel/dp/B004W3IEI6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Baker's Daughter: A Novel</a>&nbsp;by the same author, so took a peek at her other works, and thought this one sounded interesting. A coming-of-age story set in another country. I picked it up at the library since the kindle price was above my target price. There were issues in the story that confused me. The daughter's feelings about her mother did not make sense to me. I don't know....I did enjoy the book but thought it could have been so much more.
1825971
The master Mexican story teller has assembled stories of interconnected lives on the on the Tex-Mex border. The stories are loosely interconnected in that a few characters appear in more than one story and most have some connection to a Mexican Master of the Universe -- a multimillionaire mover and shaker who can make and break lives. We learn a lot about the politics, economics and sociology of the US-Mexican interrelationship, to the point where at times the lesson seems a bit heavy-handed and the story suffers  a kind of  before we go on, Im going to explain the bracero program to you.

But we get some good stories. The Mexican Donald Trump character entices a beautiful woman to marry his socially inept son, whom he genuinely loves, and yet he thinks nothing of keeping her for his mistress as well. Obviously the rules don't apply to him. One poignant moment that sticks with me is when a Mexican window washer flirts through the glass with a beautiful gringa lawyer and she writes her name in lipstick on the window Audrey, and he writes Mexican and walks away. There are stories about the perils of the border crossing, the life of women in the maquiladoras (border factories), and the special burden of being a Mexican-American if you are a US border guard (gonna let all your friends and relatives slip through, aren't you?) A young gay Mexican man lives with a very Republican American family while at Cornell and the mother of the family never refers to their guest as Mexican because she is afraid of offending him. The young man has a heartbreaking relationship with an American man. Good stories.
4075333
I liked this series... But I found some of it simplistic and I'm not one for "sex" scenes... But as I'm Irish it was nice to hear about village life and a bit of Ireland itself...It had nice visuals -as it were...
61010
The topic I found very interesting.  I never knew that the Irish were stolen as slaves.  The writing was good.  It's a read I would recommend.
2704051
Ireland is still clear in my mind from my trips there but also from this story. The Irish have a lovely way with words and dealing with life. Not much gets them down or keeps them there for long. In my mind I could see the small town and hear the lilt of the Irish brogue.
96241
My daughter was born on March 17, and we have strong Irish roots on both sides.
It's a fun little story both my kiddos like it. Will be fun to pull out each year. It inspired them to set some traps, too.
3103428
I live in Hawaii, the only things I remembered about Ireland having some problems was from U2s song "Blood Sunday" & the mention of IRA on news maybe ~10yrs ago. I had no exposure of Ireland's hx, so it's very surprising to see that Ireland's political conflicts strongly relates to their religious differences, which in this case, it's Catholicism vs Protestantism; and then liberation from British strongholds in NI.

I find it interesting b/c Middle East has so much criticism of their Islamic beliefs & some outsiders think that Islamic faith is the cause of their problems & promotes violence. And from history, one has to remind themselves, Catholicism, Christianity, as a whole, also has a very violent past as well, it's just not Islam that has it's devout believers.

Many wars have been justified by religious beliefs, which unfortunately involves politics in means to resolve the issues. This lil' intro of NI was ok, I thought it got too complex, esp if one doesn't have any previous hx of Ireland. I got more basic understanding by using Wikipedia. This short intro wasn't worth the $10.
275522
The story itself started off too slowly and picked up interest and speed about halfway through. The background story of the abuses by the Irish Catholic churches and the Magdalene homes was really interesting, and something I had not been aware of before. That history could have been explored more.