An Irish Country Christmas by Alice Taylor

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Alice Taylor was one of six children growing up on a farm in County Cork in the 1940s. At the time of this story, she was nine years old, an age when Christmas is still magical and filled with wonder. In this book she relates all the activity surrounding the twelve days of Christmas in a tight-knit community.

The book opens with a local merchant receiving his orders of dried fruit, knowing almost exactly how much each household will want for the Christmas baking. There’s a lot to be done to get ready, and Taylor describes it in vivid and loving detail, from going out to gather the holly to cleaning the chimneys.  There are letters to Santa to be written.  Cards arrive, even some from America. The one from Aunt Kate in New York is a glittery wonder this year, arriving far too early for Mr. Taylor’s taste, but the cheerful Santa gives the children hope that Christmas will indeed come—eventually.  The last to arrive is always the one from Uncle Dan, who left when he was 18 to become a sheep farmer in Oregon.

While Taylor beautifully captures all the excitement and anticipation of Christmas, she doesn’t shy away from the realities.  Those darling little goslings, raised so tenderly by Mr. and Mrs. Goose are destined for holiday tables and their wings will be used as dusters. The children all have to help with the farm chores, and lend a hand to neighbors when needed.

Some of these customs will seem familiar but others are relics of their time, or are family specific. The Taylors always bought new records, for example.  After Christmas Eve dinner, the gramophone is brought out so everyone can hear the new records. This year the favorite tune was “Come Back, Paddy Reilly, to Balljamesduff.” Taylor writes that the song was played constantly “until my father began to regret that his mother had not drowned Paddy Reilly in his baby bathwater….”

I was particularly intrigued by the “Hunting of the Wrens” which took place on December 26.  Thankfully, by this time real wrens weren’t hunted.  Instead, people wear disguises and go from house to house to sing for a reward.

I was charmed by the writing, especially the loving descriptions of cooking and chores.  There’s a bit of low key humor, too.  Their jennet is notorious for biting any unwary human who gets too close—Alice thinks it’s a good thing the jennet was not at the stable or baby Jesus would have been at risk, and the heifers don’t care for being rounded up.  Unpleasant things can happen around unhappy heifers. 

There’s no particular plot to this book, just a warm and wonderfully detailed account of Christmas celebrations of times past. I will admit that there were some things I wish had been explained a bit better (Women’s Christmas, for example, which is mentioned in passing as another name for Little Christmas which is January 6) but overall I just went with the flow.   It’s the perfect book to relax with during a hectic season.

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

Reviewed by Kristin

“Roanoke girls never last long around here.  In the end, we either run or we die.” --Allegra

Black and white photographs on the wall show the Roanoke girls who have lived in the sprawling house on the prairie.  Some have escaped.  Some have not.

After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year old Lane moves from New York City to small town Osage Flats, Kansas to live with her maternal grandparents.  Gran and Granddad have a farm, but also family money, so they are the proverbial big fish in a small pond.  Beyond that shimmering surface, secrets lurk in the murky depths.

Cousin Allegra is near Lane’s age and absolutely ecstatic to have another teenager in the house.  The girls look enough alike to be sisters.  No surprise there, all the Roanoke girls have the same dark haired beauty.  As Lane settles into small town life, she soon meets Allegra’s boyfriend Tommy, friend Cooper, and a few girls who are more competition than friends.

But that was then.

The book is separated into alternating chapters of “then” and “now.”  “Then” was the single summer Lane spent with her family before becoming one of the Roanoke girls who ran. “Now” is a decade later, when Granddad called and asked her to come home, because Allegra is missing.

Now.

Lane returns from an aimless, rambling life in California to Kansas to help find Allegra.  Tommy has become the local law enforcement and finally married to someone else after Allegra refused to commit to him.  Lane sees Cooper again and in some ways it’s as if she never left.  Lane senses the swirling undercurrents of secrets kept and lives ruined, even lives lost, but feels she must stay to help Allegra.

Clues about the things hidden then and now are revealed slowly.  The Gothic atmosphere winds itself around the characters like a fog, even as the summer sun shines brightly.  The house itself feels like a character, bearing witness to all that has gone before.  Lane then and Lane  now, and Allegra then, both feel the charismatic pull of the powers of the Roanoke estate.

Days after finishing this book, it is still on my mind.  I found it creepy in a spine tickling way.  While reading, I was continually examining the motivations behind the characters’ actions and looking at how some people control others.  Family relationships are not always simple, and within the Roanoke family they are more convoluted than most.  Since I am always curious about authors’ other books, I looked and discovered that Amy Engel has published just two other books, a young adult series.  I will be on the lookout for upcoming novels.  Although not my usual reading fare, I enjoyed the shivers and prickles as the story unfolded.