Customer Reviews

Naming of Eliza Quinn

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How is it that this book has only one review? Yes, it's a bit uneven in the early sections, as the other reviewer already pointed out, but I also agree with her that the later portions more than make up for it. I haven't read widely on the subject of the Irish potato famine, but I know enough to have been impressed by the level-headedness with which Birch approached the subject. There's no sentimentality here, which is no mean feat in a book that begins with the discovery of a child famine-victim's skeleton in a hollow tree. It's probably down to the narrators, particularly the original Eliza, who is practical perhaps to a fault; but that in itself makes the ending all the more heartbreaking. This is great modern Gothic. Read it!