Having enjoyed so many of Kate O'Brien's novels I was very happy that there were several more on the Virago Modern Classic list which I had not yet read. This is a beautifully written tale of a French actress, Angele, who is touring Ireland with some friends. Bored with their company she decides to take herself to Drumaninch, the birthplace of her father, which he had often talked about, and where her cousins still live today. The Kernahans are an intriguing family, and they seem to have a hidden past, that includes the estrangement of her father from them. Angele is seduced both by Ireland and two men creating a tangled situation of love that is hugely influenced by the past leading to what the blurb describes as "a tense and complicated situation".
Like O'Brien's other books, this novel is hugely atmospheric with a wealth of wonderful period detail and I really enjoyed reading it.
It's been published three times by Virago with each of the different sorts of green cover (but the copy I read was actually an Orange Penguin edition)
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