This is the long-awaited sequel to Brooklyn, a novel I adored. It is another masterpiece by Colm Toibin. The story continues twenty years later, Eilis and Tony are married and have a son and daughter. They live in Long Island on the compound Tony had promised Eilis he and his brothers would build the book, Brooklyn. Eilis has struggled a bit, overwhelmed by Tony's large Italian family and missing her homeland but things get much worse when she finds out that Tony has had an affair with a customer and the baby will be born in a few months. The woman's husband tells Eilis that the baby will be given to Tony, but he will not keep it in his house. The story is about how Eilis responds to this situation. Part of her solution is to return, finally, to Ireland for her mother's 80th birthday. After spending time there, her son and daughter join her. Of course, she runs into Jim Farrell who has remained in the same town. This is a magnificent family drama and the characters are richly described. It is a story about family and love and missed chances and regrets. I loved every minute of it! Thank you, NetGalley, for the advanced copy. I am crossing my fingers for the next book in this series -- it can't come soon enough.

Been a long time since I read Brooklyn but it was fun to revisit the family. I actually liked this one better. Felt characters were more developed. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher!

I absolutely do not recommend this book due to its style and ending. I do admit that I watched Brooklyn over reading it, but I still wanted to love the sequel. I was not excited about the premise of this book, but excited to read what happened along the way. Then there was the switch from Ellis POV to multiple POV and I absolutely hated it. I skipped from Part 3 to Part 7 because I would not be able to handle that many POV switches. I did not miss much in the way of things. But then the ending came and I wanted to throw my phone across the room, because that was not an ending.

This was a good continuation of Brooklyn/Eilis Lacey's story! I really enjoyed it and could not put it down once I started reading it because I just had to know what Eilis was thinking and would decide about Tony and Jim. The sentence structure is fairly simple throughout - descriptions are concise, so a lot is left to the reader's imagination. Sometimes that was frustrating because I would have preferred a little more to the story, but I CANNOT wait for the next installment in the series!!!

A sweeping tale with Toibin's signature style. A sequel to Brooklyn set 20 year later, Ellis Lacey finds that her husband has fathered another woman's child and decides to return to her Irish roots for her mother's birthday so as not to become responsible for raising the baby. Old friendships and loves resurface as she struggles with what to do about her marriage. Beautifully told.

Toibin's sequel to Brooklyn follows Eilis Lacey--twenty years later [1976]--her life on Long Island--and her return to Ireland.

Eilis is [still] married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber, from a close-knit Italian family [four brothers living in neighboring houses with their families on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst--and his parents]; their son and daughter are teenagers, Eilis is an accountant. One day, she answers the door to an [Irish]man who tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and when the baby is born, it will be left on Eilis's doorstep. She refuses to bring the child into her home--or stay for the birth. There is much discussion on the issue among some family members [though she had presumed there would not be such talk]. Eilis decides to return to Ireland for her mother's 80th birthday and skip the birth of the illegitimate child and the delivery to her house, Eventually her two children join her--meeting their maternal grandmother for the first time.

This was an easy, engrossing read. I couldn't wait to see how it unwound. The prose is spare--simple and lovely. Sad with some uh oh moments. Lots of internal dialog with Eilis, her almost husband Jim Farrell [read Brooklyn] who runs a successful pub, and Nancy Sheridan--her former best friend, now widowed and running a chip shop--and in this book Jim's lover. No spoiler from me.

Eilis's mother is set in her old ways and doesn't even have a refrigerator or washing machine--this makes for some humor in her confrontations with her daughter. There are also characters/employees in Jim's bar that add some depth to the story as well as some sidelines around Nancy's family and her daugther's upcoming wedding. Just a good yarn.

Not sure how I wanted it to end but I feel sure there is [and should be] another book coming.

Read.

4.5 but can't quite pull the trigger on 5 stars,

Stories that end but don’t reach a conclusion can be frustrating but much truer to real life. In this worthy sequel to BROOKLYN, the heroine returns to Ireland but finds it hard to be home again. This is a low-key character study with great atmosphere and a bit of angst as the novel nears the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner/Simon & Schuster for the ARC to read and review.

This is the 2nd book in the Eilis Lacey series. I didn’t know that when I was approved for this book, so I had to go back and read it. I guess I didn’t have to, but I did. The first book, Brooklyn (also a movie) is fabulous. I had been in a bit of a reading rut, and this was a great switch up as historical fiction and non fiction is what started my reading journey to begin with.
The characters in this story are written so well that they come alive and off the pages and you feel like you are one of them – maybe a nosey neighbor? Maybe a cousin? Either way, the reader is immersed and involved! This is a story that covers so many emotions – love, lies, memories, regrets, complicated relationships and longings. A perfect mix or Irish and American lifestyles – kudos to Colbin. I will be following this author from now on.

Eilis Lacey, wife, mother, and bookkeeper, is having a normal day in her house on Long Island. She lives with her family on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, in one of four houses that her husband's family owns, dad and mom in one and his brothers and their wives in the others. A man with an Irish accent comes to her door and tells her that her husband, Tony, a plumber, got his wife pregnant, and when the baby comes, he's giving it to Tony. She also finds out that the whole family knows this and is on board with raising the baby. She absolutely isn't and decides to go back to Ireland for her mother's 80th birthday to give her time to figure the whole thing out. The plan is for her to go a few weeks ahead, followed by her son and daughter before the party. Meanwhile, her best friend Nancy, now a widow, has been seeing Jim Farrell who never married after Eilis left Ireland 20 years ago. They have a secret "understanding" that they would marry one day. When Eilis comes back, she has a prickly reunion with her mother and the tight town of Enniscorthy, where everyone has known everyone's business since they were born. Nonetheless, Eilis manages to start an affair with Jim, which Nancy finds out about and takes drastic measures. How will Eilis straighten her life out this time?
I read Long Island before I read Brooklyn-that was a mistake. A brief synopsis of Brooklyn for those who haven't read the book or watched the movie: Eilis Lacey lives with her mother and sister Rose in Enniscorthy, County Wexford. Rose, a dynamic young businesswoman has decided not to marry, but instead, takes care of her mother. Eilis can't get a job, and her mother and the parish decide that she'll have a better life in New York. A priest in Brooklyn finds her a job, lodging, and enrolls her in a two-year business course at Brooklyn College . She meets a young Italian plumber named Tony at an Irish parish dance. They date and he is very respectful toward her as the relationship progresses. When Rose dies, she returns to Ireland to visit her grave, but not before she and Tony secretly marry. She tells no one in Ireland of her marriage, leaving the town people with the idea that she has come back to stay. .
Eilis is an interesting subject. She seems to have no will of her own, and just meanders through life-that's why she gets into these conflicts. Toibin basically describes his characters and tells what they are doing almost in a journalistic manner and the reader has to make decisions about the why the characters behave as they do. The book brings up very discussable themes; wouldn't it be nice to live two simultaneous but completly different lives? Can you go home again? If you do return, will you understand that life isn't static and you must deal with change?
After reading the first two novels, I see that the publishers are referring to these books now as the Eilis Lacey series and Long Island certainly leaves the reader wondering when the next book will emerge and how Eilis resolves her dilemmas-I hope we don't have too long to wait.

Thank you Net Galley, Scribner Books and Colm Toibin for the wonderful opportunity to read an advanced copy of Long Island.
I love stories about Ireland and Irish people. I have been to Ireland many times and always feel so welcomed and able to fit right in. I felt the same way reading this novel.
Colm Toibin is a great writer and develops his characters thoroughly. I felt like I was one of the neighbors watching the story unfold. This novel is filled with in depth emotions, and moving plot line of secrecy, miscommunication and love. So many of the emotions were kept hidden which caused conflict. Many of the women stayed in the background without opinions. Our main character, Eilis,, tries to control her situation but family and responsibility always comes first.
I need this story to continue. There is plenty left for these families to go through and I want to be part of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this read. All opinions are my own.
Having previously read and enjoyed Brooklyn, I was excited to read this sequel. Eilis is not the same girl who navigated creating a new life in Brooklyn. Married to Tony, mother to 2 children, her life suddenly turns upside down with the revelation that Tony will become a father by the married women he's sleeping with. This signifies the breakdown of her relationship to Tony, and precipitates her traveling home to Ireland for an indefinite stay. This parallels Brooklyn - Eilis visits Ireland and makes a decision about her relationship then too. We meet some of the same characters (Jim Farrell) and some new. Overall, the intersection of lives, desires, and future expectations was woven so carefully. I found myself yearning for resolution; the way the story ended was satisfying, while still leaving loose ends.

It was a real treat to get to revisit Elis and continue her story. I emigrated to the US as a twenty year old so I feel like I have a special bond with her! This was definitely the case in Brooklyn but not so much in this novel. This was a highly enjoyable read, if you're able to suspend your belief a bit. As an Irish woman, I'm not sure I'd be so easy on my cheating husband and I don't know too many Irish men who'd take back a woman who left them decades before. In other ways, the book is SO Irish! I think Elis's mom is the exact same person as my own and I could totally relate to their "battles" upon Elis's return and also to her interactions with the grandchildren, I didn't really enjoy the sense of dread I experienced once the two timing started but it definitely kept me reading. Honestly, I enjoyed Brooklyn more than this book as the characters seemed a bit abstract for me, Jim especially. What was he thinking?! There's a touch of magical thinking/escapism in this book that I haven't seen in early novels and I'll definitly go along for the ride. Overall, it was a very fast and pleasurable read and I look forward to the next installment. Thanks to the author and the publisher and to Net Galley for the ARC.

This was a really good read. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed Brooklyn. It's beautifully written.

FABULOUS! I loved every word of this wonderful saga! It was relatable in so many ways. Eillis' struggles broke my heart--once again. And oh those nasty secrets and rampant small town gossip! So many "if onlys"...

The way Toibin portrays women's thoughts is spot on! And the omniscience of the narrator throughout really added to the dramatic irony. It was so well done overall that I even enjoyed getting "Soprano-ed" on the very last page!

Brilliant!

(Anxiously anticipating the return trip to America!)

I didn't know that I needed to find out what happened to Eilis Lacey until I downloaded this ARC, and just like with her first story I was captivated by her. The author's language is both spare and lush, communicating deep unspoken feelings in just a few words. I will definitely purchase this title for my library and for my personal collection.

A wee bit of the Irish, the zestiness of Italy, and the bangin' drums American style.

That's what Colm Toibin has delivered in the second book of his Eilis Lacey Series. Toibin introduced us to the fair Eilis in his first book, Brooklyn. It's since become a movie of the same name on HBO. Perhaps you're already familiar with our heroine who left Enniscorthy, Ireland as a young woman barely out of her teens. She found a life for herself in Brooklyn and eventually married Tony Fiorello who pursued her after their first dance.

Eilis is now in her 40's in 1976 with two teenage children, Rosella and Larry. They live across the lawn from Tony's parents and the onslaught of the in-laws and the out-laws. Eilis has no peace from the invasion of family. She works at a local auto repair shop where she does the books for the owner. But everything is about to change for this family.

A ton of bricks and a sliding avalanche would have done less harm. A man shows up at Eilis' door with shocking news. He says that Tony is the father of his wife's expected baby. He'll leave the baby on her doorstep as soon as it is born. No illegitimate child will reside in his home. Tony (horror upon horror) admits to it. Life is forever changed.

Eilis will not accept the child under any circumstances. She plans to fly to Ireland for her mother's 80th birthday. Eventually, Rosella and Larry decide to visit their Irish grandmother whom they have never met.

Eilis is bogged down with decisions to make in the aftermath. She wants what is best for Rosella and Larry in the end, but she also has been devastated by this news. Colm Toibin arranges the folding chairs of life in Ireland in a haphazard formation for Eilis. Nothing is the same or will be the same on both shores. Toibin injects some sizzlin' events for Eilis while in her homeland. As readers, we will be takin' sides and makin' fists over all of this.

Long Island is quite the read. Colm Toibin sees to that with his lively style of writing. Long Island reads as a standalone, but it's best to grab Brooklyn to set a firm foundation. Get in on the ground floor.........guaranteed fire and lightning torchin' the horizon in the next one.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Simon & Schuster and to the talented Colm Toibin for the opportunity.

I'm a huge Colm Toibin fan and so it didn't surprise me that I loved this book. The opening pages were absolutely compelling and I was in then, along for wherever he wanted to go. As in his previous novels, the sense of homecoming in Ireland and also the dislocation of being from a place but not living there any longer is superb. I felt for all of the characters in this novel, even when they were behaving in ways that weren't admirable. A powerful story.

In this sequel yet standalone novel, Toibin returns to his beloved character Eilis Lacey from his twenty-year-old novel BROOKLYN. Eilis finds herself at a crossroads in her life and marriage, and returns from Long Island to her home in the small Irish town of Enniscorthy to contemplate her future. Complications ensue. Beautifully written and oh-so-discussable: a perfect choice for book clubs.

I really enjoyed being back with Eilis again and spending time with her and the other characters in Ireland. Another beautifully written book by Colm Toibin. Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for the advance copy.

Toibin is a master at characterization. In this sequel to Brooklyn, A strange man appears at Eilis Lacey’s home in Long Island and tells her that Tony has fathered a baby by his wife and that he will be depositing the baby on her doorstep as soon as it is born. Eilis, whose children are in their teens and not wishing to raise another woman’s child, decides to return to Ireland to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday. There she reconnects with Jim Farrell, who she had deserted 20 years before, and Nancy Sheridan, her onetime best friend.
A story of love, regret, lies, and longings complicated by current and past relationships make this a most compelling read. Toibin writes with incredible understanding and his descriptions of neighborhoods are masterful as he juxtaposes the culture of Irish and American lifestyles.
A masterpiece of thought, emotion, and insight.
Highly recommend. Would give it 10 stars if I could.