Delaney's previous novel, Ireland, made the best-seller lists in 2004, and librarians should prepare for his new one to follow suit. In the broadest terms, it is about the history of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ireland. What keeps the novel from collapsing under the weight of such vast material is the author's use of one man's experiences during these decades; his life serves as a paradigm for the country's experiences at large, particulary as they pertain to the two intertwined issues dominating Irish national life: land reform and home rule. Charles O'Brien was born into the ruling Anglo-Irish elite; he became a healer, traveling the length and breadth of the Emerald Isle practicing his art. At one point, while in Paris, he stands beside Oscar Wilde's deathbed, there happening to meet the young woman who will be his obsession for decades to come, before she finally agrees to marry him. Before her agreement, however, he spends considerable time and energy helping her achieve her inheritance, the great house called Tipperary Castle, and bringing the decrepit property back to its former glory. The story is narrated in Charles' voice, with alternating (and supplementary and even corrective) passages supplied by a second narrator whose personal involvement in Charles' life is slowly revealed. A sophisticated and creative historical novel.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2007 Booklist

When shamrock green meets black and tan, things sometimes go mauve. Irish expat novelist Delaney (Ireland, 2005) likes his history with a leavening of fiction, or perhaps his fiction with a leavening of history. In previous work, this history has been sometimes incidental, but here, in a tale of Ireland in a time of dispossession and civil war in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Delaney brings real events to the fore. The story-within-a-story concerns a manuscript that recounts the love between an Irish amateur historian and the young daughter of a landed Anglo-Irish family. Charles O'Brien, the historian, "lived in a culture of narrative," writes our descendant narrator; April Burke, on the other hand, kept her counsel and lived a life that "brought danger and actual harm to those who loved her," which makes for a very promising tale indeed. Charles's long pursuit is fraught, but it affords the narrator--read Delaney--the opportunity to reflect at many points on the twists and turns of the Irish past, which has always been more complex than it appears. ("If you're not confused," says one adage on the matter, "then you don't understand the situation.") Delaney acknowledges, wisely, that Irish history has always been written with loving ornamentation and staggering heaps of blarney, as well as no end of romanticism; for him to have put a historical tale into the terms of a real romance is a nice twist. The prose sometimes turns purplish and didactic ("Nineteenth-century men had many curbs on the ways in which they could express themselves. Despite some unexpectedly swift mail services, communication was generally limited, so a romance had few escape valves."), but for the most part Delaney writes with no undue sentimentality, and the narrative moves swiftly and surely. A sort of Irish Gone With the Wind, marked by sly humor, historical awareness and plenty of staying power. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Even as the Irish fight to toss the English from their lands, gentle folk-healer Charles O'Brien helps a beautiful young Englishwoman reclaim her family's Irish estate. With an eight-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Seventy-five years after the death of Charles O'Brien, an Anglo-Irish itinerant healer and occasional journalist born in 1860, his memoir is discovered in a trunk. The result is this touching novel from Ireland author Delaney, in which the manuscript's putative discoverer adds his own unreliable commentary to the fictive Charles's probably embellished perceptions-making for a glowing composite of a volatile Ireland. Charles claims to treat Oscar Wilde on his deathbed; advise a young James Joyce ("When you write... be sure to make it complicated. It will retain people's attention"); tell an appreciative Yeats the story of Finn MacCool; and inadvertently bring down Charles Stewart Parnell. He also meets the founders and leaders of Sinn Fein and the IRA, and will, as will Ireland itself, entwine his fate with theirs. And at 40, never-married Charles meets the love of his life, 18-year-old April Burke, an Englishwoman who repeatedly spurns him and exploits him, but who has a large role to play in his life. The narrator claims that his interest in Charles and April is academic, but he eventually confesses that he suspects their stories have some personal relationship to his own. Delaney's confident storytelling and quirky characterizations enrich a fascinating and complex period of Irish history. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved