Kathleen O'Connor is your stereotypical Irish lass, raised on tales of fairies and little people, and clings to romantic notions about the moon and fair Irish breezes. She also is smack in the middle of the Potato Famine and it's one tragedy after another. All her siblings die, as does the love of her life, Rory. Then, to top it all off, the landlord boots them off their land and gives the O'Connor family one-way tickets to America, during which both parents die. (These aren't spoilers. It's all on the back of the book, which annoyed me because there was no suspense at all during the long voyage.) So what's an orphan to do in a strange and scary country? Well, luckily, Kathleen knows English, which puts her in reluctant good stead with those who think of the Irish as a bunch of illiterate bogtrotters. After a scrappy few weeks on the docks (a plot that is the first in the Sunfires I can recall of deliberate criminal lawbreaking), Kathleen ends up as maid in the home of a very rich Boston family - both in money and dysfunction. Kathleen harbors hatred of wealthy people, the root of her family's miseries, but the son of the family is just so gosh-darned HANDSOME! And he's a poetical loner, misunderstood by his narrow-minded family. Quelle romantique! She's compelled and repulsed by turns, but you just know one has to win out eventually.
I liked this one, for the most part. It was another one of those Sunfires that are welcome changes from the more formulaic ones. Kathleen, though she finds herself attracted to David Thornley and the rich objects around him, is driven to succeed on her own terms, leading her to contemplate the life of a tradesman, a craft she has a slight knack for but which isn't exactly ladylike. Phooey to that, she says, and though she allows that she might not be able to continue it, she'll work it to her advantage in the short term. It's a nice plot device, much more affective than the usual Vivien Schurfranz device of having her heroines be the ridin'-est, rootin', tootin', shootin'-est gals in Old West/Old South/Colonies from page 1. (Yes, I do like to dump on Ms. Schurfranz. Guilty, but it is ever so much fun.)
Kathleen learns and grows over the course of the book and, since this is Candace Ransom, the "rivalry" of suitors really isn't one at all. One gets sidelined early on (even if he doesn't know it, in this case), and so more attention can be placed on one romance. Sure, it goes against the Sunfire formula, but it makes for a better read. I wanted to hit David Thornley repeatedly for being such a wuss about his writing career, but, seriously, his FAMILY. He was working against quite a bit there. If he'd taken to hobbling around on crutches in his jammies and guzzling booze by the gallon, I wouldn't have been surprised. All that was missing were Gooper and the no-neck monsters.
Ransom has a great eye for detail of the era, though the descriptions of furniture and clothes may get tedious after awhile. IMO, it fits in with the vast difference between Kathleen's old life and her new one. She's had so little, that her eyes absorb everything. However, for a promising start, this one eventually descended into typical romance territory with deliberate misunderstandings and obtuseness for the last quarter between our good hero and heroine, and the pleasure I got from reading it decreased in proportion. The finale wrapped up too nicely, with Change of Hearts And All That, but this is teen romance, not wrenching tapestries of the soul. Even so, the story could have used one less bright package with a tidy bow at the end. Still worth tracking down, as it's one of the rarer ones and the majority of the story is a cut above the norm.
I liked this one, for the most part. It was another one of those Sunfires that are welcome changes from the more formulaic ones. Kathleen, though she finds herself attracted to David Thornley and the rich objects around him, is driven to succeed on her own terms, leading her to contemplate the life of a tradesman, a craft she has a slight knack for but which isn't exactly ladylike. Phooey to that, she says, and though she allows that she might not be able to continue it, she'll work it to her advantage in the short term. It's a nice plot device, much more affective than the usual Vivien Schurfranz device of having her heroines be the ridin'-est, rootin', tootin', shootin'-est gals in Old West/Old South/Colonies from page 1. (Yes, I do like to dump on Ms. Schurfranz. Guilty, but it is ever so much fun.)
Kathleen learns and grows over the course of the book and, since this is Candace Ransom, the "rivalry" of suitors really isn't one at all. One gets sidelined early on (even if he doesn't know it, in this case), and so more attention can be placed on one romance. Sure, it goes against the Sunfire formula, but it makes for a better read. I wanted to hit David Thornley repeatedly for being such a wuss about his writing career, but, seriously, his FAMILY. He was working against quite a bit there. If he'd taken to hobbling around on crutches in his jammies and guzzling booze by the gallon, I wouldn't have been surprised. All that was missing were Gooper and the no-neck monsters.
Ransom has a great eye for detail of the era, though the descriptions of furniture and clothes may get tedious after awhile. IMO, it fits in with the vast difference between Kathleen's old life and her new one. She's had so little, that her eyes absorb everything. However, for a promising start, this one eventually descended into typical romance territory with deliberate misunderstandings and obtuseness for the last quarter between our good hero and heroine, and the pleasure I got from reading it decreased in proportion. The finale wrapped up too nicely, with Change of Hearts And All That, but this is teen romance, not wrenching tapestries of the soul. Even so, the story could have used one less bright package with a tidy bow at the end. Still worth tracking down, as it's one of the rarer ones and the majority of the story is a cut above the norm.
