The Equal of God: Book 1 An Irish Historical Saga: A Novel of Ireland Before and After the Irish Famine

Six year-old Agnes knows Spikes is coming today. She knows because her father is in a bad temper, her brothers are stepping carefully around him and her mother is distracted. But who is Spikes and why everybody is afraid of him? That’s what she can’t figure out while she watches her father order her brothers to bring out the rusty farm tools and make the thatch on the roof look old and worn, scuff up the dirt around the cottage so it doesn’t look like they’ve been making improvements.

What she doesn’t know is that it’s gael day. Rent day. Spikes is the Baron’s man, come to collect the rent. The Connors are tenant farmers on the Baron’s land. And if it looks like the Connors have increased the worth of the property, he’ll add a few shillings onto the rent, plus a few more for his own pocket, shillings the Connors can’t afford.

And if Connor complains? Where is he going to go? To another Baron’s estate? Where the agent might be worse than Spikes? A man who might tax him for fixing his leaky roof and still evict him for the hell of it.

And so begins the story of Agnes Connor and her family and the dance between the landed the gentry of Ireland and the tenant farmers who paid the rents that allowed the Georgian lifestyle to flourish. Through the eyes of Agnes and her family and the neighbors in the surrounding villages you’ll see, hear and feel Ireland as though you walked the fields, felt the soft air on your face and danced to the sweet tunes at the crossroads and in the grand ballrooms. Prepare yourself for laughter, love, heartache and redemption.