A Pocket Full of Shells

Irish Family Saga, Book 1

De: Jean Reinhardt

Narrado por: Michael Healy

In 1846 a baby girl is born to a young Irish fisherman and his wife. It is the second year of the Great Hunger and the young couple choose to remain in Ireland, while family and friends are leaving. Their story takes place in the fishing village of Blackrock, Dundalk, but with the cities of Liverpool and Sunderland playing a critical part in their lives. Is their love for each other and their homeland enough to sustain them, or will they be forced to join the one and a half million who emigrate? This is the story of a young man's love for his wife and child and the struggle to provide for his family in one of the darkest periods of Ireland's history.

©2014 Jean Reinhardt (P)2017 Tantor

The people are so real…

I enjoy learning history through historical fiction. It leads me to do research and to better understand the times. Although fictional, the characters seem so real they make you want to cry. As I do my research about the Irish ancestors in my own family, I wonder about their reasons for leaving Ireland. What drove them to leave family behind and restart their lives in America? This novel is what I would call “gritty”. The family in this series are resilient humans. There is positivity, yet I ask myself if I would have been that positive faced with similar circumstances. It really makes one appreciate the ability to to sit back, put on headphones and listen to an Audible book.

Fairy Tale

The book , a sweet story but alas, a fairytale about a family who thrived through not famine—there was no famine— but the horrific Irish Hunger.
It puts a warm glow on the horrors inflicted on an entire country without giving an accurate account as to what caused it nor what enabled it to continue. There was no famine—there was a potato blight to be sure, The attempts to alleviate the suffering, the death, the horrific scourge briefly very briefly noted, but not given the full account of the wanton negligence of the English colonizers. It spoke of the “Indian corn“ that was being used to feed people in the workhouses. Indian corn ad it was called. It’s actually feed corn meant to be livestock not people, it is indigestible by human beings unless it is milled four times. Also, It did not, tell the reader about the great number of people who suffered such bowel distress—such as vomiting diarrhea—and died because their bodies were too weak to recover and left them open to die from other diseases and ailments such as dysentery and dehydration.
The book should be labeled fairytale and fiction because that is exactly what it is. It puts a glow or spin on one of the most horrific times in human history that led to not only the greatest diaspora the world has ever seen, but also to genocide.

I found this very boring

I am nearly finished with book 1. I just can't get into it. The book has not been character driven, so I did not bind with any of them. The author tells you about the people. There is very little dialog amongst the characters, you only learn about them thru descriptions. Author tells you about Ireland famine, but reader does not feel it. I think it is very boring so will not read the rest of the saga.