Mulderrig isn’t a particularly welcoming village to outsiders, something Mahony discovers early on. Mahony is determined to find out what happened to his mother, an event the residents of Mulderrig want left untouched at all costs. But someone knows the truth and Mahony isn’t leaving until he finds it. Aided by the flamboyant Mrs. Cauley, Mahony sets about questioning everyone about their whereabouts on that fateful night. But, much like Mulderrig itself, there is more to Mahony than meets the eye…namely the dead. But will they help or hinder him?

I have so much love for Himself and am sure of two things (1) I will re-read it, probably numerous times and (2) it will definitely have a place on my top books of the year list. A must read that is as breathtakingly creepy as it is full of humour. Kidd weaves a web of magical realism around a mystery with its roots firmly planted in Ireland’s dark past.

Thank You Netgalley for this copy of Himself by Jess Kidd. The back and forth through different times telling the tale tended to get me lost. I was enticed by the synopsis and it did hold true but it was a give and take all the way to the final solution of the given mystery, but it did have an acceptable end.

I loved this book. The author does a great job of pulling the reader in and making them a part of the story. Looking forward to the next book!!

A fantastic read--a mystery with elements of magic realism set in a Western Ireland village. The writing is poetic and witty--a pleasure to read! I can't wait to read more from this author.

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Its a delicious mix of Irish folklore, humor, wit and great characters. As a orphan returns to his small Irish village to discover his past. Alone the way he runs into folk tales, Irish town people that want him to stop his investigation and many funny occurrences. its a delicious mix of the perfect afternoon read to delight each reader. Well Done !

From the first page, I had to keep reading this book because I didn't have any idea what was going on. Mahoney grew up an orphan in Dublin. He returns to the village where he was born, hoping to turn up some details from his past. He turns up more than he bargained for, in the forms of real ghosts (he sees dead people), small town history and people who don't much care for him or his birth mother. This is a debut for Jess Kidd and wowza, is it a page turner!

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't get invested in it. I tried several times, but just couldn't keep the characters in my head and lost interest. Maybe I'll pick it up again later.

I loved the book Himself by Jess Kidd. In absolute perfect timing, I was reading it over St. Patrick’s Day.

The main character of the book is Mahony. Mahony was abandoned at an orphanage as a baby. When he receives a note that there might be something more than just his mammy giving him up, he returns to the place of his birth, Muldering.

The townspeople immediately recognize his dark eyes and good looks. He is the son of Orla Sweeney. There is plenty of mystery around the disappearance of Orla Sweeney. Some say she abandoned Mahony and set off to make a life for herself, others hint that something more sinister might have happened.

Mahony is befriended by old Mrs. Cauley. Mrs. Cauley, a retired theatre actress, helps Mahony in his quest, stirring up quite a few secrets along the way.

Not just a mystery, there is plenty of old Irish folklore, magic and humor thrown in.

I received an ARC copy of the book.

A dark and beautifully written mystery combing magic and the supernatural. It is magical and humorous and dark all at the same time, with the most wonderfully written characters.

This book started slow for me but I'm glad I hung in because this author can paint a story. His descriptions and characters made me feel like I was a part of the story

HIMSELF is one of the most unusual mysteries I've read and could possibly be my favorite book of 2017

A gorgeous blend of magical realism and literary fiction with a bit of a mystery and dark comedy blended in, this story was a delight to read. This is a story of secrets held as tightly as the beliefs in this small Irish town, and how they haunt the residents like ghosts.

The character of Mahony is just fascinating. A bit of a rebel, a lone wolf, hunting for his past and fighting his own ghosts (literally and figuratively) he is an intriguing character. However, it is the feisty character of Mrs. Cauley that I simply fell in love with. (I have a weakness for tough old ladies who love to stick it to the overly judgemental and pious.)

Together they take on the mystery of what happened to his mother Orla. Author Kidd has created a cast of characters so interesting and quirky and, at times, frightening, that I wasn't sure who to trust. Along with the cast, he has drawn a vivid setting of Ireland in the 70s and the town of Mulderring with a language that is gorgeous and haunting and lovely.

I'm a huge fan of magical realism...and crime drama...and a good tale. It is a beautifully done blend of different genres. This book drew me in and held me tightly - I read it all in a mere sitting or three.

Please read my review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1974426518

5 Stars.

Bewitching, Mysterious and Whimsical.

“Himself” by Jess is a spellbinding fairytale that intertwines the magical with the supernatural. Its dark whimsy draws you in with its brilliance.

Mahoney returns to Mulderrig, on Ireland’s coast, as it’s the place of his birth. He was raised in an orphanage in Dublin and never knew his mother, having always thought he was abandoned. As a young adult, he is given a photograph of his mother and him and discovers that he wasn’t abandoned after all and thus sets out to Mulderrig to search for answers. There he finds more than he bargained for.


For Mulderrig is a place where secrets run amok and stay hidden forever. And the town folks? They are friendly to newcomers - that is, until they realize who Mahoney is and what he is after. Yet Mahoney is a charmer, swoon-worthy even. The smile, the scruffiness, the charm. And he has a gift. He can see and speak to ghosts of the past, some of whom are happy to help with his plight, while others are simply afraid of him.


When investigating what happened to his mother, Orla, Mahoney also gets help from some pretty incredible friends: Ms. Cauley, the quirky theatre performer who is wildly entertaining and full of ideas as to how to help Mahoney; Bridget Doosey, a woman who knew his mother and has gifts of her own; and Shauna, Mahoney’s, landlady who will do anything to protect him. These women are instrumental in his finding the truth.


Set in the 1950’s and the 1970’s, Himself is a fairytale of folklore. It’s endearing, dark, beguiling, and utterly charming to no end. In truth, it is not the type of book I would normally read. Whimsy, fantastical is not my style - but I must say this: it pulls the reader in from the first sentence. You can’t tear your eyes away. The prose is absolutely flawless, beautiful even. The characters are lovely, comical & ensnaring. In short, this novel is not to be missed.

With “Himself,” Jess Kidd bewitches the reader. I, for one, am glad I fell under his spell. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and Jess Kidd for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Published on NetGalley, Goodreads and Amazon on 4/16/17.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an e-ARC of this book.

An amazing debut novel that enchanted me for the most part from beginning to end. Magical realism, almost a fairy tale but the subject is grim....murder, a child abandoned to an orphanage, more murder. The tale really is a thriller which at times has one fearful, in awe, amazed. Some of it is a haze. The ending leaves questions unanswered. An enchanted world filled with interesting people whom, for the most part, I found very likable.
4.5 stars rounded to 5 because I could and I really liked the book.

**This book was reviewed for Port Jericho via Netgalley**

Kidd’s Himself tells the tale of Mahoney, an orphan come from Dublin to the provincial village of Mulderrig in search of his past and the truth of his mother's apparent abandonment of him. Mulderrig is a quiet town, harbouring hidden secrets, secrets ready to burst forth and reshape boundaries of mind, heart, and soul. In his quest for the truth, Mahoney acquires a friend and helpmate in the form of Mrs Cauley, an elderly actress who has retired in Mulderrig.

Kidd presents an eccentric cast, and a complex storyline. There is a certain charming mysticism and elements of the supernatural woven throughout. Mahoney himself is gifted with seeing the dead, who respond to his presence by waking more fully. These ghosts, and other spirits of the land help if and when they may.

This story has such beautiful language, it's enough to bring tears to your eyes at times. As so:

'Birds spin through the glass air to land on washing lines and survey lawns sprinkled with breakfast crusts.’

The lyrical writing reminded me of the a version of the legend of Cuchulainn I read recently. It is ironic to me that much later, towards the end of the story, mention is made of just this legend.There are inklings of Mahoney as a modern culture hero. He has come to Mulderrig to shake things up, bringing with him new ways of thinking and being. When he leaves, this sleepy little town will not be the same. Mahoney calls to mind Kvothe, from Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingbreaker series.

I cried at the end, once the full truth is known. I think I cried most for the collie, whose innocent trust and loyalty is so horribly betrayed. This is a book I am proud to have on my bookshelves, and will certainly read over and over again.

🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻 If you like Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series, or Tiffany McDaniels’ The Summer That Melted Everything, you will enjoy Kidd’s richly complex Himself.

I thought this novel had all the things I like in a book such as Irish folklore, a mystery to solve, and ghosts of both people and pets. Yet, at times, the story seemed to drag along for me.

I liked that Mahony who was left at an orphanage in Dublin as a baby decided to find what happened to his mother. He went to the small Irish village looking for information about her.

At times, I really enjoyed the story and sometimes, not so much. That really caused me to lose interest in the story and I felt like it took me forever to finish. I never really connected with any of the characters either which didn't help.

* I was provided an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley. Deciding to read and review was my own decision.

First published in Great Britain in 2016; published by Atria Books on March 14, 2017

I’m a sucker for novels by Irish writers who populate small Irish villages with eccentric residents. Himself is sort of a murder mystery, but Jess Kidd’s delightful prose and quirky characters, some of whom are dead, set it apart. The plot is engaging but almost beside the point.

The dead take particular note of Mahoney, who as a baby was saved from death by a forest that hid him from his murderous father. That was in Mulderrig, a place Mahoney doesn’t recall, but to which he returns 26 years later, prompted by a letter that was held by the orphanage that raised him, to be passed on to Mahoney after he was grown.

Mahoney’s mother was Orla Sweeney, a name that is still well known in Mulderrig. She might have been a witch, or perhaps was merely mistaken for one. Orla was unjustly regarded as wicked because she passed messages from the dead to the living, and the people of Mulderrig didn’t appreciate the news that the departed revealed. The reader meets Orla in flashbacks.

In the present, Mahoney meets a priest whose face can’t be trusted; a woman who produces plays for the church that the priest considers to be scandalous; a lecherous old man who has his sights set on a widow; the widow he chases, who is anxious for Mahoney to leave the village; a couple of women who are anxious for the handsome Mahoney to stay; a gossipy cat lady; the village police officer; and a variety of ghosts.

Mahoney (like many in the village) assumes that someone did away with his mother. The plot centers on the efforts of Mahoney, assisted by the play producer and opposed by nearly everyone else, as he tries to uncover the truth about Orla’s disappearance. Even a little dead girl warns him away from his quest.

Ireland is a land of folklore, a fact that Irish fiction often reflects. I always like the ghosts in Irish novels. Unlike American ghosts, they tend to be foul-mouthed, gossipy, and quite funny. There are plenty of ghosts in Himself, including a priest who haunts a commode, but most of them are silent. They confine themselves to shaking their heads or drawing their fingers across their throats when they want to communicate. Other supernatural elements include signs and portents for characters to interpret or misinterpret and quarrel about.

Like many modern Irish tales, Himself shines a light on the condition of Ireland, which a scholarly character describes as “a dying civilization, romantic Ireland, the ancient and untarnished imagination of the pure and noble peasant making sense of the harshness and beauty of their life and the landscape.” There is, as that description suggests, a serious undercurrent to Himself, enough to give the novel literary heft, but it doesn’t detract from the novel’s reliance of several forms of humor, including slapstick, farce, burlesque, satire, and parody. The humor is gentle rather than mordant, light rather than dark (despite some gruesome murders).

Himself isn’t really a murder mystery, given that the reader learns at least some of the truth long before Mahoney. But the village is good at keeping secrets from outsiders even as they gossip among themselves. Some things they would rather not to discuss at all, preferring to let the dead rest — which they aren’t about to do after Mahoney’s return stirs them to recall fragments of the lives they once had. While it’s not a mystery, Himself is a tale of good versus evil, of the few village residents who want to expose the truth versus those who have a motive to hide it. But most of all, regardless of its higher ambitions, this imaginative novel is tremendously entertaining.

RECOMMENDED

I am in the midst of reading HIMSELF by Jess Kidd and decided to post a review now because the writing is just so exquisite. With just simple phrase, Kidd expertly evokes an image of the small, County Mayo village:

"All the boats bobbed gently in the harbor, dreaming of the high seas, and the bicycles slept leaning along the fences." or
"Today the shop doors are propped open, welcoming sea breeze and custom." or
"In the quiet room the night air steals in through the open window to whisper the soap dry in the dish."

There's more than a hint of magic and some darkness in the air, too. Charming and handsome Mahony heads to Mulderrig to try to understand what happened to his mother, Orla Sweeney, when he was abandoned 26 years ago. Due to the prologue and some interspersed flashbacks, readers know that that she bore a child out of wedlock and met a violent death in 1950. But, like Mahony and Mrs. Cauley (a villager who likes to "stir the pot" and may just want to see justice, too), we are uncertain as to the killer or motive. In an attempt to unveil secrets, Mrs. Cauley casts a play with Mahoney in the lead and involves several village characters with the mystery becoming even more complex and evil at times.

Did I mention there's a supernatural element and sense of Irish folk tales because Mahony can see dead people? Kidd explains, "the dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales..." HIMSELF, a debut novel, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and deserves a place on your "to be read" list.

A curious story here, we have Himself, or Mahony, in the 1970’s heading to the town of his birth, Mulderrig from his home in Dublin, to seek out the story of his birth mother, and just why the sister at the orphanage left him a letter stating his mother was the “curse of the town” and that is why he was “taken” from her.

Told in two interconnected parts, we have the current musings and discoveries from Mahoney in the 70’s, and his mother Orla’s story from the 50’s: both provide a wonderful mix of old and ‘new’, although New in a town like Mulderrig is far less advanced than the metropolis of Dublin of the time. It’s interesting to see the depictions of the town as a place where you are born, live and die, never to leave for everywhere else is an uphill trek. Little moments that bring the differences and lives into perspective through Mahony’s eyes, as he is, if not utterly reliable, possessed of that native Irish skill for storytelling and turning a phrase.

Alternating between humor, sentiment and intrigue, the two stories reveal the changes in attitudes, or lack of them. With characters arriving clearly defined by good or bad intent, and an interesting series of musings about Mahony himself, from the townspeople and women, drawn to his charm and inexplicable allure. From Mahoney and Orla, the characters are fully developed and breathe life into the story: complex people who demonstrate their humanity in often surprising ways from understandable given circumstances and what we are told to that point, with few choices that become more settled and clear as the story progresses. Other characters that arrive and are most easily characterized as “good” are well-thought out and fully realized, while those trending to the ‘bad’ side of the equation are less complex and closer to stereotype, leaving a bit of impact on the table as unfinished. When you add in Mahony’s ability to talk to ghosts, and a bit of intrigue from those long gone in the present, but able to add their two cents to the story, it is truly a magical read, giving a sense of the otherness so often enmeshed in Irish tales.

A wonderful debut that brings a mix of elements that share the growth of a place and a people, as well as a trek of self-discovery for the title character. Lovely prose with only a few moments that seem to be dropped in and take the feel of a more hard-bitten crime novel, the feel and scenery of Ireland is both present and clearly represented here. Certainly an author to watch, Jess Kidd has made her debut a wonderful experience, sure to find readers looking for that little bit of different and hard to quantify read.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at <a href=”http://wp.me/p3OmRo-8Q9”> <a> I am, Indeed </a>