Irish Firebrands

The Celtic Tiger economy is losing its teeth, so celebrity journalist Dillon Carroll must rent out his ancestral home in the Gaeltacht. The worsening exchange rate is depleting the travel budget of genealogist Lana Pedersen, so the baby-boomer backpacker breaks into a vacant farmhouse for shelter. From the night the Irishman discovers the American at Drumcarroll, their tangent lives catalyze the chemistry between their beleaguered bodies and stormy spirits. Dillon grapples with a lifetime of losses: driven by compulsion and caught in the toils of transference, he pursues Lana with the tenacity of an investigative reporter. Lana's efforts to cope with Dillon's obsessive companionship and compel her own roller coaster emotions to conform with her faith are complicated by her unfathomable feelings about down-at-the-heel Drumcarroll; her flourishing friendship with Frank Halligan, a farmer who possesses unusual avocations and a way with women; and her memory-fraught fellowship of troubled teenager Medb McManus. Terrible questions – tragic secrets. Touched by madness – torn by vows. Fleeing the past – fearing the future. A quest for deliverance – and evocative evidence that love is eternal.... Set amid the social controversies of 21st-century Ireland, Irish Firebrands portrays psychological crises that can shatter the bedrock of beliefs and belonging. (New Standard International Edition.)