Cashelmara
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15
Ratings1
Average rating3
The New York Times–bestselling saga: In nineteenth-century Ireland, a titled English family keeps an estate in an era of famine and violent conflict.
When Edward de Salis travels to America after the death of his first wife, he is astonished to find himself falling in love with Marguerite, a young woman many years his junior. Full of hope for the future, he returns to his Irish estate, Cashelmara, but in nineteenth-century Ireland—a country racked by poverty and famine—his family eventually becomes trapped in a sinister spiral of violence that Edward could never have foreseen. Cashelmara follows the fortunes of three generations as they struggle to survive both the tragedies of history and their own chaotic lives. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Susan Howatch including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
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Short Review: This is a long multi-generational family drama based around the Irish estate Cashelmara. It ranges from the 1850s to the 1890s. It is told in six different first person narrative stories. I mostly liked the first half or so. There was not a lot of plot, but the characters were fairly interesting. But by the time the main plot rolled around (about 60 percent of the way through the book), it was not enough (or rather the wrong plot) to keep me interested. The murder, rape and violence was disturbing. But that was not my main issue, it was that the book's hard turn into the plot did not seem to include the first 300-400 pages. If you are going to have a 700 page book, at least make it all fit together.
That being said, the writing was good and I did keep reading. But this was no where close to the masterpieces that Howatch wrote in the church of England series.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/cashelmara/
