Cover Image: The Irishman's Daughter

The Irishman's Daughter

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Member Reviews

Really enjoyed this book. Great plot and engaging, believe characters. I was drawn right into the story. Would definitely recommend.

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3.5 stars

1845: the Irish Potato Famine. Briana and Lucinda are sisters living with their father who manages the surrounding farming fields of Lear House. Devastation hits hard when a plague enters Ireland killing all the crops.

Lear House was easy to envision. It added thick, palpable atmosphere to the novel making it more impactful and memorable. I could easily picture the rolling hills and acres of farmland of the Irish countryside along with the mansion home overlooking it all.

The characters were endearing and root-worthy. I especially loved Briana. A main theme is family and loyalty and it carried a heavy importance throughout the book.

The novel is informative and educational. The potato plague was a horribly devastating piece of Ireland’s past and although hard to read the upsetting details, I enjoyed learning about this time in our history that I knew nothing about.

While I enjoyed the atmosphere and characters, I found the plot dragged in a few places. My attention wasn’t kept at a consistent level as the pace was very slow and tedious at times.

I can’t say I loved the book, but I am happy I read it and educated myself on this topic. I loved this authors’ book, The Taster, and look forward to reading more from her in the future.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! Thank you to my lovely local library for the audio loan!

Audio rating: 4 stars! Loved the narrator and all that she brought to the story. A perfect choice!

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Beautifully written. Set in the mid 1800s in county Mayo during the potato famine. Brianna lives on an estate with her father and sister, Lucinda. She is full of resilience and strength. Brianna’s love for Ireland and her beau, Rory, guide a way towards hope, love and new beginnings.

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A history lesson on the famine of Ireland with a love story connected. The love of your country can make you do necessary things to survive . The female characters in this book showed determination in spite of difficulties. This book was a mediocre read . At times it became slow paced and I struggled to read.

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I loved The Irishman's Daughter. I was not sure how I would like it at first and then found myself finishing it within a couple of hours. Great read! Five stars.

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I have read the previous books by this author and really enjoyed them. I am Irish, my Great grandmother came over on a boat from Gallway at age 16 so I was very interested in reading about the potato famine. I really didn't know too many details about it. The author has obviously done his research on this one. Rory and Briana have know each other from childhood and plan to marry but her father doesn't want her to marry a tenant farmer. Carrowteige, County Mayo Ireland, 1845. There is no place on earth more beautiful with its sloping fields and rocky cliffs perched above the wild Atlantic. Briana's father manages Lear House , it's centuries old and surrounded by farms with tenant farmers selling oats,rye and potatoes. When the potato crop failed it was all over for them. The Irish suffered for three reasons during the Great Famine pain,shame and truth. This is a somber book filled with the aftermath of the potato famine, poverty,death and misery fill it's pages. I thought the book was fascinating though because it factual history. Over one million people died during this famine and equal numbers left for America,England and Wales. This is a five star book in my opinion.
Published February 26th 2019 by Kensington Publishing Corporation. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Have you ever read a book where the main character is overdrawn that you just want to slap her? Briana Walsh is such a person. By the time I finished this book, I actually loathed her. The author is so full of earnestness that she turns her into a caricature. By the end there is no way to like her. She is too good to be true.

Set during the potato famine in 1845 in the County Mayo, Briana is the daughter of the English lord's agent at his Irish estate. As the blight spreads, she labors to do anything to save the tenants. As starving people start camping outside the estate to beg for food, Briana gathers up what is left of their own food and opens a soup kitchen. I believe this happened but I can't believe she was the only one who cared. I also she would have hidden some food for own family but I am apparently wrong.

She marries her long time love, Rory, a tenant farmer. Then because having a baby during a famine makes so much sense, she gets pregnant. The author then with a character with sensibilities of someone from the year 2019, has her arguing with the landlord repeatedly, unconcerned with them being evicted or fired. After all, she knows best.

Eventually, there is a fight and the landlord gets shot and the sisters catch a boat for America. Rory can't go because he is suspected of shooting the landlord. The sisters land in Boston and eventually get work and settle in. She finds an ill boy saves him but not his mother. She has her own baby and takes the boy's savings and sails back to Ireland because that's such a great decision. A brand new baby, long sea voyage and landing in a place with no food.

Then there's this insulting author's note at the end where the American author asserts that the famine is "relegated to the dustbin of history" She said it's not really not taught in Irish schools and usually with only one or two pages in the textbook. Really? I know a few Irish people and even belong to an Irish book group on Goodreads and without exception they all know about the famine. Even here on America, news of the famine has trickled through. How condescending.

Please do yourself a favor and don't bother with this book. It's a waste of time unless you've never heard of the Irish potato famine. Thanks to Net Galley for a copy of this book.

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The author did a brilliant job of capturing the time period in this novel. The characters and plot were also well written. This was a great piece of historical fiction!

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I enjoyed the setting of County Mayo in Ireland in 1845 on a family farm during the devastating potato famine. Having been to several counties last year in Ireland, (sadly not this one, that will be the next trip), the description of the landscape really resonated in me. The description of the people's plight during this horrible time in history, I felt was accurately portrayed. You really felt people's struggles and their utter despair at times.

The main story focuses on Briana, her love for tenant farmer Rory, her sister Lucinda, along with their father, Brian, who is the caretaker of Lear House, a house owned by Englishman, Sir Thomas Blakely.

I really wanted to be drawn into this story that was such an important time in history for the Irish people, but sadly, I felt that things felt formulaic at times. We didn't have food, so we went to a seaport town for some, etc. The climaxes and obstacles within the story felt predictable and rushed at times. Things were resolved too neatly and quickly. Briana and Lucinda were strong admirable characters throughout, but the ending also felt rushed and too neat. I doubt many Irish people had a similar story/fate. The author's notes were truly interesting at the end of the novel, but overall, I felt something was amiss. The characters could have been fleshed out a bit better. I didn't feel as connected as I could have to the characters and for such an emotional novel, I felt I would have liked to have felt more compassion to the main characters than I did. It was a fast read though, thus, I would say it is a 3.5 rating.

Thank you to NetGalley/the publisher for my copy and honest review.

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The Irish potato famine led to an incredible number of deaths and mass migration from Ireland primarily to the US. Briana and her family, resident on an English landowners farm in County Mayo, watch their lives peel away. She tries so hard to keep things together but ultimately she, along with her sister, leave for Boston. This is well researched and, in it's way, quite emotional. If you aren't familiar with this period, you'll learn something but if you are, it gives a good portrait of a family in these dire straits. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. For fans of historical fiction.

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The Irshman's Daughter is set in 1845 during the Irish Potato Famine. V.S. Alexander does an excellent job of vividly protraying the struggles and hardships of fighting to survive during such a harsh time. Despite the tragic time period, the book presents glimpses of hope, mainly through the love of Briana and Rory and the strength of family. I enjoyed watching the development of these two main characters as they worked together to help each other, their village, and even starving strangers. Briana and Rory are definitely examples of perservance and resilience. I would highly recommend reading this book to further understand such a terrible historic event.

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3. 5 stars
Thanks to Netgalley and Kensington Books for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

Ireland 1845: County Mayo. For Briana Walsh and her family, there is no place more beautiful than the place they call home. Her father takes care of an Englishman's estate, her sister Lucinda is a governess in England and Briana's childhood love, tenant farmer Rory Caulfield and she have plans to marry. However, nothing can prepare them for the potato blight that will soon reach Ireland's shores and cause much devastation to their population. Equally devastating is the English government and Queen Victoria 's lack of involvement to help the Irish people who are turned out of their homes. Soon they will hear of "coffin ships" sending the Irish to the shores of Canada and America holding out for an improvement. When Briana and Lucinda are sent to Boston, they discover a world that is just as dangerous and difficult to navigate as the one which they were forced to flee.

V.S. Alexander presents a well researched fictional novel that explicitly describes the brutal devastation of "the great hunger" that forced the Irish disapora to the UK, North America etc.. Although I felt the ending a tad rushed and a wee bit unrealistic, I did finish this book in one sitting.

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Brilliant plot, excellent main characters that you invest in. I read this book in one sitting and I would highly recommend it.

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Briana Walsh, the daughter of the land agent, grew up along the beauty of Carrowteige, County Mayo. Her only wish is to marry the handsome Rory Caulfield and start their life together but when the famine hits their small village she is faced with watching as the Irish people fight to stay alive as they are turned out of their homes by the callous English landowners. Very well written and researched, this haunting and at times harsh story illuminates one of the darkest periods of Irish history. In this age of entitled attitudes and vast dependence on technology, the hostile conditions the Irish endured should serve as a lesson to all that indifference to the poor and weak of our society undermines our very humanity.

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The Irish potato famine is familiar to those of us who have studied US history, but I have never read about it in the detail in which The Irishman's Daughter presents it. Briana is the daughter of the agent for a wealthy Englishman's estate, Lear, in Ireland. She loves the land and all that has to do with Ireland, but change is in the wind when the potato famine moves from the continent to Ireland. In vivid detail, the author describes the gruesme horrors and human toll the famine extracted on the people of Ireland, and the callous indifference the English have for them.. Circumstances take Briana and her sister to Boston, but her heart is still in Ireland with her father and husband.

If you would like to learn more about the famine, this read would be a good way to do this. If you so not want to learn about starvation, evection, death then you will not want to read this book.

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I loved V.S. Alexander's The Magdalen Girls, and was excited to take in another historical tale set in Ireland. While I occasionally found the story slightly slow, the pace suited the content and I admit that page turner would not have been wholly appropriate for a story about famine. As always, Alexander's character development is strikingly on point, and I found myself wondering how Briana, Brian, and Rory would react to Ireland's worsening conditions. Having learned a bit about the Potato Famine in the past, I was struck by how real Alexander's storytelling rendered the situation -- told with sensitivity and gritty detail, this story conveyed the humanity of those who suffered and made the tragedy real more than 150 years later.

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The Irishman's Daughter, by V.S. Alexander, teaches one more about the great Irish potato famine and it's affect on the Irish population than any history lesson ever! As usual, Alexander has written an excellent story set against a real historical event. Her protagonist, Briana, is indeed the Irishman's Daughter of the title. She has a genuine love for her country, Ireland, and Alexander spares no words in her many descriptions of the raw beauty of the rugged surroundings. Since Briana's father is an overseer for a British land owner in county Mayo whereas her husband is a tenant facing both bankruptcy and starvation due to the continuous failure of the potato crop, there is no shortage of plot devices n this book.

Alexander's depiction of the generational way of life gives one a true sense of the love the Irish have not just for their family, but also for their extended community and the land they depend on to meet all their daily needs – food, housing, fuel, etc. Her characterization of the arrogant British who have no idea of the hardship facing the Irish when their crop fail helps one understand the long standing animosity between the two countries. In addition to the pompous British, Alexander cleverly integrates the secret society of the Molly Maguires, the failure of the Roman Catholic church to help those in most dire need, societies expectation of women and the mass migration of the Irish to America into the novel.

Although the ending is somewhat contrived it brilliantly tied up all the lose ends and left one with the feeling of hope for the future of the myriad of characters who had been so passionately brought to life.

I recommend this book to lover's of historical fiction.

I received a free copy of this ARC in return for a honest review.

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I  enjoyed the setting of Ireland in 1845 on a family farm during a devastating famine.  The tenant farmers were dealing with a plague on their potato crops. The potatoes were moldy, black and rotten. The farmers had a struggle coming and they weren't prepared for it.

Brian manages the land and the tenant farmers for the wealthy Sir Thomas Blakely who is concerned only for his bottom line. Brian's daughter Briana, struggles to help all the families that are suffering due to the failing crops. She is both strong and courageous. 

I wanted to love this book, but it never fully captured my attention. You know, when you keep reading, thinking something will strike you.  I read The Taster by this author last year and it made my 2018 favorites list. So I had high expectations for this one. It felt like the story was just staying in one place for far too long before things began to move along. I think I was suffering along with the farmers.

Thanks to NG / publisher for my review copy.

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I didn’t really enjoy this novel. I know there will be patrons, howevet, who will gladly read it. One aspect I appreciate about NetGalley is the opportunity to read books I would normally skip and thus add to the titles I can recommend.

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Historical fiction at its best by a wonderful author.A book set in Ireland during the potato an engrossing read full of human emotions and struggles.Highly recommend,

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