Fatal Roots by the late Sheila Connolly was well written with a great storyline and wonderful recurring characters.

In this book, we find Maura has rekindled the relationship with her mother after many years of not seeing each other. Everything is going well until her mother and half-sister show up and then a corpse is undercovered.

It had me guessing until the very end.

Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others!

While I have read Sheila Connelly before, this is my first book I’ve read in the County Cork series. I believe that this is the last book in the series, so I think that I will want to go back and read the others as well. But I picked up this book after enjoying several other of Connelly’s work in some of the other series, so I wanted to try this one out. I’m glad that I did.

I enjoyed FATAL ROOTS and enjoyed the different style of writing. I loved the setting, which I think made this series a bit more different and therefore more unique. I think it’s probably the biggest selling point of this series. I mean, who wouldn’t want to read about an Irish setting, right?

Maura, the heroine, is still someone that I think is still going through her growing phases. As this is my first book of the series I’ve read, I can’t really tell you if she has developed much from the beginning. However, I do still think that there’s still room for her to develop. She says she doesn’t know a lot of things in the book, but I don’t know if that’s an excuse or just a way to keep the mystery going.

I will say, there’s a lot of repetition in this book, which definitely bogs down the story. I think the author could have addressed that more better. In the end, it was still enjoyable and I will continue reading her books.

I have read other books is the series but have skipped a few. I had no problems picking this one up as a stand-alone. The characters are entertaining and complex. The mystery is well-plotted to keep the reader on their toes looking for the real clues. I hope to catch up on the series in the near future.

All thoughts and opinions are my own, and in no way have I been influenced by anyone.

What a fascinating book. I was impressed by the storyline and the characters were all well written and complex. Where there are complex storylines combined with intriguing characters the reader experience is magnified tremendously. To have a book that is well written as well as entertaining is a delight. Reading is about escaping your world and entering another one. Here I forgot about my own life and was immersed in the world created by the author. I would recommend this book.

The mysteries in this series are always different and interesting. Not the regular run of the mill cozy murders. Maura isn’t always my favorite, but I do love the other characters in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, which I voluntarily chose to review.

I love stories that are set in Ireland.  This has led me to read all of the Tana French books, books by Benjamin Black and Sarah Stewart Taylor's new first in a series.  I also give a shout out to the novels by Dervla McTiernan.


Here we have a cozy mystery by Sheila Connolly who also makes Ireland the location for her series featuring Maura Donovan.   This is the eighth featuring Bosten ex=pat Maura Donovan.  This one includes fairy forts and murder.  Will Maura resolve everything including her relationship with her mother?


This book can feel a bit slow and repetitive at times but I think that it will be enjoyed by readers of the author's other stories in the series.


Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.

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This was a 2.5 star read for me. Once again Maura is whining about a thin plot and no mystery and having to repeat her story over and over again. The only saving grace is if you have been reading this series her Grandmother's story is told and it makes a nice ending to the series. As other's have noted this book really needs a editor.

Sheila Connolly’s Fatal Roots in another installment of the County Cork Mysteries that has a bit of everything to make this an entertaining read. All the usual characters rally around Maura as she decides to open the kitchen at her pub. She enlists the help of Rose, who works at the pub and takes cooking lessons, to get the kitchen set up for food service. Meanwhile, Maura’s mother and stepsister, Susan, are in Ireland to get hotel business matters under control. Maura and Susan are meeting for the first time and their relationship starts off a bit slow until Susan takes an interest in the pub and helping Rose with the kitchen. Things appear to be working out well until Maura gets a knock on her door from a university student who wants to study fairy forts on Maura’s property. The mystical lore of the fairy forts makes Maura uncomfortable, but she allows the student and her team to explore and then a team member goes missing. Maura and her boyfriend Mick do their own investigation and find a body buried in a fairy fort. This discovery causes villagers to confront secrets from the past and Maura gains some insight about her own story.
Thanks to NetGalley, Crooked Lanes Books and Sheila Connolly for giving me a free electronic ARC of the book.

Fatal Roots

by Sheila Connolly

Maura Donovan is as American as can be until she inherits a pub, house, and assorted pasture lands in Ireland from an Irish friend of her grandmother’s. In Fatal Roots by Sheila Connolly, Maura has lived in Ireland about a year and is becoming comfortable with her new country, role of ownership, and relationship with her boyfriend Mick and other new friends in the small town in Cork.

Life gets more complicated for Maura when Ciara, a post graduate student in archaeology shows up on her doorstep requesting permission to examine Maura’s early Irish fairy forts. Maura doesn’t know where her various acreages lie and doesn’t know what a fairy fort is or anything about the superstitions surrounding them. In the process of rolling out this tale, there is a grizzly discovery, Maura’s mother who abandoned her as a child comes to Cork on business bringing Maura’s half sister, and Maura makes changes to the pub so she can sell food.

Throw in Mick’s grandmother Bridgett and Old Billy who lives above the pub and you have a good basis for a plot. I liked the story, but repetition hampered the enjoyment for me. I had to hear over and over again of Maura’s background, the Irish attitude toward fairy forts, Maura’s angst about…everything—her family, her relationship with Mick, superstitions, decisions about kitchen remodeling, the student archaeologists. The plot was wrapped up nicely, and the epilogue provided emotional closure for characters that I really liked. I also enjoyed learning about fairy forts, which are a mystery in themselves and go by many names.

I would like to extend my thanks to Netgalley and to Crooked Lane Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3/5

Category: Mystery

Notes: #8 in the County Cork Mystery Series

Publication: January 7, 2019—Crooked Lane Books

Memorable Lines:

But it was beginning to seem like any time anything happened, it was like scraping off the present to see pieces of the past.

“I could show yeh, but it really doesn’t have an address.” “Neither does my place. So far it’s ‘the cottage halfway up the hill, past the yellow cottage. If you reach the piggery you’ve gone too far.’ This is all so not like Boston.”

Life was too short, with too many unexpected twists and turns, to wait for the one perfect moment, if there even was such a thing.

Connolly keeps adding great depth and nuance to this mystery series, as Maura meets her half-sister and then needs to find a missing student looking for one of Ireland's famed fairy forts. A great read.

Another excellent edition to a wonderful series! Full of twists and turns that leaves you wanting more and enjoying each moment until the end when the killer is caught!

Maura Donovan is settling in to her new Irish life. She rekindled with her mother in the last book and gets to know her half sister in this one.
Then a Cork University student comes to town and stirs things up. She asks if she can investigate a 'fairy fort' on Maura's land. Unfortunately a body is found in the fort.
I still like the characters and setting of this series very much, but I found this book slow and repetitive. Also, a few threads in the story were left hanging.
This series has been great in the past and I hope it will be again.

This book was fine. I’m waning on this series. Moves a little too slow for me. And the main character is starting to annoy me.

Title: Fatal Roots

Author: Sheila Connolly

Series: County Cork book 8

Chapters: 28 plus epilogue

Pages:281

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Rating: 3 stars

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Fatal Roots in the eight book in the County Cork Mystery series by Sheila Connolly, and Maura Donovan has finally settled into life in Cork and has discovered that her family has gotten a little bigger.

This one was a little slower than previous books in the series and while it wasn't my favorite mystery it was still pretty good and I did enjoy it.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are mine

Folklore And Mystery....
Folklore and mystery give Maura cause for curiosity and consternation in this latest County Cork mystery. On the whole this series is both enjoyable and engaging but sadly this offering is possibly the weakest in the series thus far - repetitive and somewhat without plot. Do start with others in the series which are well written reads.

I have loved this series since the beginning, but this book was disappointing. There was so much repetition. How many times can you discuss kitchen appliances and measuring for them? Or retell the exact same findings? Also, the name changes of characters drove me crazy. I’ve no idea if the mistakes were corrected before final publication, but when the author switches between different names for two characters, the reader is completely taken out of the story and left to figure out a mystery of their own in deciding who is being referenced. Thanks to Crooked Lane and Netgalley for allowing me to give my honest review.

Princess Fuzzypants here: Maura, transplanted from the US to Ireland has built a new life at her inherited pub and cottage and made many new friends who accept her as extended “family”. She knows very little of the life her grandmother and father lived before they arrived in America but she is going to find out more than she might have wanted.
She’s approached by grad students from a nearby university who want to dig on her property. They are doing research on fairy mounds. In fact, Maura had no idea how much land she owned until they arrived but with the pleasant surprise, there is also an unpleasant one. A corpse is found buried inside the mound. Whoever it is, the body has been there for decades. It appears there are folks who know what happened but it takes a long time and may revelations before the entire story is told.
Maura finally discovers why her grandmother left Ireland and what happened to her grandfather. It is a sad tale. But it is one that puts several mysteries to rest. Like the previous stories in this series, it is immersed in atmosphere and emotion that pulls the reader into the lives of the characters.
Four purrs and two paws up.

After reading the previous book in this series I had hope that the pace and focus would improve. That didn't happen. Maura still can't pull her life together, she just goes with the flow. If she didn't have Rose and Mick working in her pub it would fail completely. She's been in Leap long enough to have more interest in how she fits in and, for some reason, all this time later she just discovers land that she had no clue that she owned? She just signed any and all papers handed to her by the estate lawyers with out asking any questions? She has trouble making rather obvious decisions about the kitchen for the pub. Add those to the very slow pace and the rather weak mystery - I was disappointed. When I came to the end I didn't have the feeling of satisfaction that I expect from a mystery. Having said that I will, at some point, take a chance on the next in the series to see if this was just a slump. I just won't be in any rush.
My thanks to the publisher Crooked Lane and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.