I recently finished the audiobook version of The Princes of Ireland and am on the fence about starting the sequel, The Rebels of Ireland. I thought it was a solid 3/5 book, and really the only thing that I didn't like was how choppy it seemed with the different stories/times. Maybe it was a little harder to follow on audio than the book version, but I found it a little difficult to keep the characters straight.

Is The Rebels of Ireland the same way? Was it just as good/better/worse than the first one? I'm debating whether to copy it to my iPod or just return it to the library and skipping it altogether.

(BTW, I love all things Ireland and really found the stories/book an overall enjoyable read. But backtracking so often to get the characters/story straight and trying to remember what I was listening to was a little difficult. So I'm torn.)

What says the crew?

Kelly,  With out exception with Rutherfurds books I have been very very grateful for the family trees in the beginning of the books, just so I could keep the characters straight, and how they relate.

I've read two Rutherford books, London and The Forest. His style is very much like Michener's with the big jumps between generations, etc. I can't even imagine trying to tackle him with an audio version.

Ditto -- I love Rutherford (well, except Russka), but I am also always flipping back to the front looking at those charts to keep everybody straight.

If you wanted to do an audio, perhaps someone would let you copy (or maybe there's an online version, I've not looked) the family tree, which might help you keep folks straight?

Kelly, I listened to the audio version of Princes of Ireland too.  Once I figured out it was more a history of the city of Dublin, and less to do with family ties, I just went with it.  I did appreciate the Gaelic pronunciation of things!  I picked up Rebels, but it's still on Mt. TBR.  I do believe it's more of the same, though.  

ETA:  Yes, if you go to Amazon and use the "Search inside this book" feature, you can see maps and the family tree there.  That should help!

Thanks, ladies! Yep Vicky, I did the same. I kinda had to just roll with it after a while because I really just couldn't keep them straight. And it was much more enjoyable when I wasn't trying to brainstorm family connections. LOL I think I will look up that chart online and use it for reference, great idea!

I have his Sarum on my TBR that I scored at my library store for a buck and am excited to read that one, too.

The only Rutherford book I read was Russka which I really liked.  Gave me a close up look at life in that country and what the people had to endure to survive.

Yeah, I think Rebels is much like Princes in that regard--style is the same, characters a little more interesting, I thought....