Book Review of Gracelin O'Malley by Ann Moore

Goodreads Summary: As the potato famine devastates Ireland, Gracelin openly defies her English husband by feeding the desperate souls who come to their door, and secretly sides with the rebels who call themselves the Young Irelanders—including her beloved brother, Sean—as they fight to free their homeland from the yoke of English rule.

Goodreads Rating: 4.58 stars with just over 344 ratings (for all 3 books in the trilogy set)

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Ireland Culture

2019 Reading Challenge: #25 Read book 1 in a trilogy ( find the full challenge here)

Review: 

I found this book in one of my e-mails from Kindle. The whole trilogy is lumped together in one book. It was on sale, so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's kind of messing with how I usually do my reviews, though, and I wanted to do one for each book. 

Gracelin O'Malley is the main character in the trilogy. It follows her from around 5 or 6 to 19. It's set during the 1800s during the potato famine. This is not a period I've read much about but found the way it was presented in this book to be really interesting. I thought that Ann Moore did an excellent job of developing the scene and creating a visual of how hard life would have been during this time. I'm such a sucker for details that make historical fiction novels feel realistic. 

I really liked the character development in the first book. I felt like the story gave a lot of background of not only Gracelin but also her family and her husband. Gracelin was well written and felt like a solid main character. She went through hell, but still had a kind heart and was willing to give what she had to others. The squire was absolutely vile, and I thought he was equally well-written. It's been a while since I've detested a protagonist as much as I hated him. There was even some info included info on the townspeople they interacted with. Overall, I felt that Ann Moore gave a great look into a family-oriented community who took care of their own even in the worst of times.

I appreciate the Irish culture in this book. I always feel incredibly ignorant of my own Scottish and Irish ancestry. Through Granna, who is my favorite character in the book, a lot of Irish history and lore are discussed. How factual it is, I don't know, but it makes for a good story regardless.

Overall, I really enjoyed the introduction to Gracelin O'Malley's story. There were definitely some surprises and some heartbreaks with certain characters that I was really fond of. With the whole series being in one book, it's going to make it easy to knock out the other two for the trilogy section on the reading challenge. I'll probably dive into book two here shortly, once my kindle charges.