 Beyond the Cliffs of Kerry
Amanda Hughes
Adventure
Book Publisher Interesting
read ... Recommended
Darcy McBride and her brother
are the only survivors of their family who suffer the awful famine
that swept Ireland during the hunger of the mid 1700s. After
the death of her family caused Darcy and Liam along with another
waif Bran Moynahan to be turned out of their home the children
took refuge in the caves up on the cliffs of Kerry.
During the intervening years
Darcy, Liam have become smugglers. A crime punishable with death,
servitude or whatever the English soldiers decide. Darcy's childhood
sweetheart Bran was captured and sent to serve seven years as
an indentured servant in the American colonies.
With the arrival of Father Etienne
Darcy's life will change in ways she never expected. Bran's return
will ultimately lead to Darcy facing an indenture to be served
in the American colonies. Liam, grave digger by trade is hung
for his smuggling activities. Darcy is loaded aboard a ship and
sold into indentured servitude. Over the years she becomes acquainted
with Etienne's brother, finds both focus and love for her life
and at last learns that life can be good despite many setbacks.
Writer Amanda Hughes has taken
a bleak, bitter time in history and woven a very credible tale
of duplicity, adventure and even romance from it. "Beyond
the Cliffs of Kerry" is a hard hitting gritty tale filled
with lusty well developed characters who raise empathy from the
reader. The players peopling "Beyond the Cliffs of Kerry"
are most human notwithstanding their predictable wholly understandable
desire for self preservation. Dialogue is believable, at times
harsh and filled with the pathos of the time portrayed.
Hughes has done a fine job of
research to help fill the gaps the reader might have concerning
the day to day lives of those caught up in that frightful time.
The famine period of the 1700s was a desperate time filled with
desperate people forced to scrabble just for existence from babyhood
forward. Hughes has done a fine job creating settings, characters
and circumstance to bring the reader into the duration portrayed.
The reader is caught up in the
narrative from the opening paragraph when we find Darcy standing
in her kitchen. We are caught fast and carried along on a breathless
trek from Kerry to the American colonies, through the war between
England and France and back once more to Kerry.
I enjoyed the read. |
Home