Let me say first that I did enjoy reading this book and both the conspiracy story and love story were interesting. I gave it 3 stars going by the description "I liked it."
With that out of the way let me just say this book was a little bit of a letdown after reading Irish Gold (the first book). Most of the things I loved about Irish Gold were missing in Irish Lace. Three examples: 1. Much of the Irish "voice" is missing from this novel. I get that they are now in America so clearly Nuala will talk more like an American and Dermot will talk "regular" but I just adored the author's voice in Irish Gold. 2. There are many more phonetical explanations of the pronunciations and although I was pronouncing Nuala wrong in my head (it's Noola btw), it just seemed to take away from the story when he would interupt himself to tell me she said "pint" instead of "point." 3. Dermot and Nuala constantly refer to "your man" in their conversations. It could really mean anyone from Abraham Lincoln to a police captain to whomever. It just got really old after a while. At first it was cute how they would say that Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton was "your man." Then it just got tiresome.
Like Irish Gold, I found this book to be pretty heavy on the history lesson. I (again if you've read my Irish Gold review you'll know the problem is with this reader and maybe not the author?) do not know a lot about Chicago so I could have understood the different parts of Chicago better if a map had been included in the book and maybe a timeline too. I could not picture the area and it just made it hard to understand the finer details, although in general the details didn't effect the story!
The other thing I noticed was that the conspiracy story about the conspiracy story that wasn't and the art heist ... they were both really flat. There wasn't any complexity there and all the details just came together at the end. Then there was the whole political angle to Nuala's deportation. Didn't bother me to read it but again, a little flat and a little heavy.
In Irish Gold, Nuala feels Ma's presence and except for Michael Collins throwing the rock, there is little mysticism. In this book she is flat out psychic (sometimes) which I didn't really enjoy very much.
Finally, maybe I missed something but the story left me hanging about why Billy Herndon was after Nuala. We do get an explanation on why he would finger the illegals but not Nuala herself and since his interest in her (and Dermot) starts off the book, I left the book confused on that point.
Long and short is, expect a different experience than Irish Gold. Maybe if you go in with that experience it won't be disappointing for another reader. I expected the same tone/feeling/experience as Irish Gold and I didn't get it.
With that out of the way let me just say this book was a little bit of a letdown after reading Irish Gold (the first book). Most of the things I loved about Irish Gold were missing in Irish Lace. Three examples: 1. Much of the Irish "voice" is missing from this novel. I get that they are now in America so clearly Nuala will talk more like an American and Dermot will talk "regular" but I just adored the author's voice in Irish Gold. 2. There are many more phonetical explanations of the pronunciations and although I was pronouncing Nuala wrong in my head (it's Noola btw), it just seemed to take away from the story when he would interupt himself to tell me she said "pint" instead of "point." 3. Dermot and Nuala constantly refer to "your man" in their conversations. It could really mean anyone from Abraham Lincoln to a police captain to whomever. It just got really old after a while. At first it was cute how they would say that Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton was "your man." Then it just got tiresome.
Like Irish Gold, I found this book to be pretty heavy on the history lesson. I (again if you've read my Irish Gold review you'll know the problem is with this reader and maybe not the author?) do not know a lot about Chicago so I could have understood the different parts of Chicago better if a map had been included in the book and maybe a timeline too. I could not picture the area and it just made it hard to understand the finer details, although in general the details didn't effect the story!
The other thing I noticed was that the conspiracy story about the conspiracy story that wasn't and the art heist ... they were both really flat. There wasn't any complexity there and all the details just came together at the end. Then there was the whole political angle to Nuala's deportation. Didn't bother me to read it but again, a little flat and a little heavy.
In Irish Gold, Nuala feels Ma's presence and except for Michael Collins throwing the rock, there is little mysticism. In this book she is flat out psychic (sometimes) which I didn't really enjoy very much.
Finally, maybe I missed something but the story left me hanging about why Billy Herndon was after Nuala. We do get an explanation on why he would finger the illegals but not Nuala herself and since his interest in her (and Dermot) starts off the book, I left the book confused on that point.
Long and short is, expect a different experience than Irish Gold. Maybe if you go in with that experience it won't be disappointing for another reader. I expected the same tone/feeling/experience as Irish Gold and I didn't get it.
