📖 Blog Tour ~ The Irish Child by Daisy O'Shea

Bookouture
16 July 2024

Thanks to the publisher for the book and invitation to the blog tour

A salty breeze whips the tears from my eyes as I stare out at the emerald Irish Sea. Everything I’ve lost, the child my great grandmother Nellie lost, all feels so present here, in the land my family left years ago. How will I ever move on? Will I ever uncover the truth about the little girl who went missing all those years ago?

When Boston-born Erin arrives in wind-tossed Roone Bay, she’s heart-sore, tired and lonely. Her marriage is over: she’s come to build a new life for herself on Ireland’s rugged southern coast. And to unravel the story behind the mysterious note in her family’s ancient Bible that has haunted her since childhood. But hazel-eyed former lifeboat volunteer Finn, the only local historian around, quietly refuses her pleas to help.

So Erin settles in to the town, with its whitewashed cottages and ruddy-cheeked fishermen, and begins her quest alone. Who was her ancestor, Nellie, and why did she leave Ireland for America? What happened to her missing child, Annie, and did Nellie ever see her again?

Just as Erin despairs ever uncovering the truth, one rain-soaked night she is rescued by Finn, who finally agrees to help. And by firelight and candlelight each evening, just as it would have been in her great-grandmother’s time, Finn and Erin grow closer as they share their stories.

But just as Erin wonders if Roone Bay could be her forever home, she makes a devastating discovery. Will she be able to face the truth, which changes everything she thought she knew about herself, her past, and her family’s Irish legacy? Or will she run, just as Nellie did all those years ago, and lose the best chance at happiness she’s ever had…?

📖  My Review..

Boston-born Erin arrives in Roone Bay ostensibly to search for her Irish roots and to discover why her ancestors left Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century to make a new life in America. However, there are complex personal reasons as to why Erin has left America and we learn that she too has secrets and has suffered her own fair share of heartache.

As always the author draws you into this lovely Irish coastal town which we first came across in The Irish Key, and whilst this is definitely a stand alone story and can be enjoyed as such, it was  lovely to meet up with some of the well loved characters we have met before. The gentle pace of the story moves between two time frames so that we can picture life during the troubles of the past whilst at the same time enjoy Erin's journey of discovery in the present day.

There's a gentleness to the story which I rather enjoyed, and with neither time frame seeking to steal the limelight, I felt an affinity with Erin's story as she tentatively made changes to her life and her burgeoning relationship with the handsome Finn brought an interesting romantic element. Bringing the past to life in a special way Nellie's rather sad story explained her reasons for leaving Ireland during the time of the Great Hunger and as my own ancestors also left Ireland during this tragic time I felt an immediate connection to her story.

The Irish Child looks at the heartbreaking secrets of the past, weaving together the bonds of motherhood, and of the family ties which, even though broken, can be pieced together in time.

About the Author

Sue Lewando was a teacher for several years before migrating to the office environment, where she was PA to the Treasurer of Clarks Shoes, a multi-national company, then, briefly, PA to Susan George, the actress best known for Straw Dogs. Sue had many genre books published (M&B and Virgin), under pseudonyms, and self-publishes her crime thrillers. She was on the committee of the Romantic Novelists’ Association in England, for whom she assessed typescripts. She has been a fiction tutor for the London School of Journalism for twenty years. She has two grown-up children, a happy second marriage, and a bundle of cats and dogs. She moved to West Cork with her husband to undertake a farmhouse refurbishment project, foster their joint passion for playing Irish traditional music, and to invest time in their individual academic projects. She recently completed a Masters in Creative Writing at UCC, taking the opportunity to explore diverse writing genres. She works with the Jeremy Murphy Literary Consultancy in the capacity of typescript analyst, ghostwriter, editor, and online publishing advisor. She loves good commercial fiction, and is a devotee of the Oxford comma.

Twitter / X @westcorkwriter #TheIrishChild

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