Rebecca S. (rsstick) reviewed on + 5 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
This rich story opens with dissolute, weak, liquor-sodden. hopeless John Staples, Lord Ragsdale, observing the useless, aimless, chaotic path his life has taken since the brutal death of his father ten years earlier. In addition to his other charms, Lord Ragsdale also harbors a livid hatred for the Irish.
What made the day the novel opens any different from any other day was the unexpected (to him) arrival from the United States of his first cousins. He almost immediately wrote off his cousins, but they had with them a maidservant, who was unobtrusive, attractive, and apparently both intelligent and educated (certainly more so than his cousins). She piqued his interest until she made a comment under her breath and he heard her Irish lilt. That ended that.
or so it seemed. Along the road to Oxford, where Lord Ragsdale and his mother were going to enroll Robert, one of his cousins, the entourage stopped for the night at an inn. There Ragsdale discovered that Robert had a ruinous addiction to gambling. When instinct awoke Ragsdale in the night, he discovered that Robert had stolen all of his money and Ragsdale ran downstairs to discover his cousin about to gamble the indenture contract of his sisters Irish maidservant. And that is how Ragsdale ended up with Emma Costello, Irish woman.
In order to more quickly end her indenture and get on with her own personal agenda, Emma takes Ragsdale up on his drunken request that she reform him. Now the real story of mutual redemption begins.
Carla Kelly is one of my favorite authors and this is a grand story. The characters struggle with guilt, human frailty, and rise above adversity with strength, caring from sometimes unexpected places and, finally, love.
What made the day the novel opens any different from any other day was the unexpected (to him) arrival from the United States of his first cousins. He almost immediately wrote off his cousins, but they had with them a maidservant, who was unobtrusive, attractive, and apparently both intelligent and educated (certainly more so than his cousins). She piqued his interest until she made a comment under her breath and he heard her Irish lilt. That ended that.
or so it seemed. Along the road to Oxford, where Lord Ragsdale and his mother were going to enroll Robert, one of his cousins, the entourage stopped for the night at an inn. There Ragsdale discovered that Robert had a ruinous addiction to gambling. When instinct awoke Ragsdale in the night, he discovered that Robert had stolen all of his money and Ragsdale ran downstairs to discover his cousin about to gamble the indenture contract of his sisters Irish maidservant. And that is how Ragsdale ended up with Emma Costello, Irish woman.
In order to more quickly end her indenture and get on with her own personal agenda, Emma takes Ragsdale up on his drunken request that she reform him. Now the real story of mutual redemption begins.
Carla Kelly is one of my favorite authors and this is a grand story. The characters struggle with guilt, human frailty, and rise above adversity with strength, caring from sometimes unexpected places and, finally, love.
