A Long Way from Heaven

I think this is definitely going to be a love it or hate it book simply based on comfortableness with the culture. Growing up in an Irish home and inundated with its literature, music, movies and history for as long as I can remember for me this was familiar. I can still hear my father’s Irish brogue that would break out when he’d sing or read certain things with similar prose so I loved Sheelagh Kelly’s writing, phraseology, and word choices.

I felt the author did a great job really immersing you in 1800s Ireland along with the horror of the potato crop failures that nearly destroyed a nation. I loved the descriptions and hated them at the same time because the vividness of the sorrow and devastation created here reminded me of what my family went through; the permanent scar it left upon our culture.

I felt the struggle of what the people had to endure and how much harder it could get if they left seeking survival was accurately captured here. It’s not an easy book to get through when you have a personal connection to one of the worst acts visited upon humanity but this book handled that difficult time with grace and respect to those who went through it and its survivors.

I’m looking forward to the next book to find out where she’ll be taking the family saga next.