An Embarrassment of Riches

Derry Women #1

by Gerald Hansen

When Ursula Barnett and her husband Jed win the Irish lottery, they think their troubles are over. But they are just beginning. Ursula coerces her Yank husband to retire in her hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland, hoping to atone for her youthful sins as a collaborator with the IRA in the 1970s. At the first sniff of Ursula's lotto win, however, her chronically greedy sister-in-law Fionnuala Flood rallies the family against Ursula.

Fionnuala's life is a misery. She is married to a boozing fish-packing plant worker and raising seven seedy hooligans, from a convict son to an eight-year-old devil-daughter who will resort to desperate mesaures to secure the perfect Holy Communion gown. Between two part-time jobs, Fionnuala still finds the energy to put into motion plans which pit husbands against wives, daughters against mothers, the lawless against the law and Fionnuala against anyone fool enough to cross her path.

Family saga and black comedy, love story and courtroom drama, "An Embarrassment of Riches" will take you on a journey to Northern Ireland and beyond, where Protestants and Catholics wage battle daily, and where crossing family with finance leads to heartache and hilarity, passion and tragedy.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Ireland, Chick Lit, Amazon, Family

280 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2007

About the author

Member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Crime Writers Association, best-selling author Gerald Hansen was a Navy brat. He started school in Thailand, graduated high school in Iceland, with Germany, California and his mother's hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland in between. He attended Dublin City University, and also lived in London and Berlin. The first of his Derry Women Series, An Embarrassment of Riches, was an ABNA semifinalist in 2011. His Derry Murder Mysteries series has been a great success. He also has a travelogue series, Around the World with Jet Lag Jerry. He loves spicy food, wearing Ben Sherman and traveling around the world (still). He lives in NYC.
Author pic by Marcin Kaliski

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Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a crazy, messed up book with ridiculous, twisted, bat-shit crazy characters! It's like a more trivial Casual Vacancy, if you've read that. Still very dark and nothing good happens, but it's written in a light-hearted way. Instead of a small town, we focus only on one family in Northern Ireland. The war is over between Protestants and Catholics, but tensions still remain high, so that shows through in the characters. Poor Ursula, our main character, has no likeable qualities, but we see at the end that her family's hatred of her is completely unfounded and for no particular reason (although they make up plenty of reasons). It's also a funny tale of a couple ill-suited for money winning the lottery (basically the crux of the entire book) and immediately pissing it all away. Fun times!

[Katherine Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review on Amazon:

Gerald Hansen has written a whole book. It's not often that a book catches with characters that seem almost novelties at first and with prose that delves into setting and situation with such deftness. That he maintains the hilarity while weaving an undercurrent of contemporary temptation and its outcomes, is nothing short of a feat.

The impetuousness of the Flood family, Ursula's attempts to revive love from her relatives with her lottery win, surge with a pathos that covers both a raucous younger generation and the older generation's obsessions with gain. The orchestrations of Siofra's confirmation dress, her brother's street drugs and police informing, Dymphna's schemes for her child to have a Catholic father, somehow don't overwhelm the confessions of their mother and Ursula's investigation of Jed wasting the lottery money.

This is a book you decide to finish early on and, surprisingly, the laughs and the amazement come more frequently in the latter third of it. And you find yourself waiting for certain members of the Flood family to appear again because, while there's hostility in this, you've come to care about some of them.

I took an Irish Literature course in school and the genre Tragi-Comedy came into the discussions. This is definitely in that tradition.

[Jakky · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I see overall reviews of 3.29, I usually move on to the next title. But I have a penchant for batshit crazy characters and Irish humour and dark comedy. This one amused me tremendously even when I was cringing. I cringed a lot over the characters’ weaknesses and naked vulnerabilities, as well as their deviousness and streaks of cruelty. This one is not for everyone, but it tickled me enough to give it 4 stars.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superbly written black comedy with a barrel of laughs. There’s even a Derry Speak glossary which you’ll soon discard once the dialect gets under your skin. An Embarrassment of Riches is deftly plotted, with twists and turns and ironies especially where the feisty Dymphna’s pregnancy is concerned, and the scene where she and Rory are talking across purposes in the ChipKebab will have you in stitches. Meanwhile, Fionnula’s youngest daughter, Siofra, may only be eight years old but she has learned a scam or two along the way. She wants the Maria Theresa dress, the parasol and the tiara with lights on for her First Communion and nothing is going to stop her. With this gritty book you are in for a hoot and a ride as bumpy as mother-in-law Eda’s stairlift. But be warned, there are moments of tragicomedy where you least expect them.
Highly recommended

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this story about one woman's suffering with her evil family after she and her husband win the Irish Lottery. She's definitely not the most likeable person in Derry, but her family were downright hideous people. I laughed and cringed and enjoyed the Northern Irish dialect.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulously funny book by a very gifted writer.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a dark journey. Every page I found myself astounded that things could still get worse for the main character. I would read it again and did enjoy it. Looking forward to the next one.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure enjoyment! It made me laugh out loud!

[Barbara Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is little to no redeeming qualities in any of these characters, but funny they are. The twisted situations that they create for themselves and each other are hilarious. I now have a reason to never by lottery tickets, winning ruins lives.
I was thinking about the book as I was walking my dog in my lower class American neighborhood yesterday. I overheard a woman yelling into her cellphone as she stood on the front step of her abode “Where’s my free house! And what about my idea of a food truck? They wouldn’t have anything if she was still working at a restaurant, but they don’t think about that.” I couldn’t hear any more words but her grievous tone followed me down the street. I chuckled to myself that I have a Fionnuala in my neighborhood. I bet there’s one in every neighborhood.

[Ingrid Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authentic - needs more stars

Loved this book! The language, the characters, the poverty, the greed and envy were so real. So was the hate between the Catholics and Protestants. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so realistic which made it so sad. My heart ached for Ursula and Jed. Highly recommend.

[Heather W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was hilarious but also sad due to the hostility between the family members when Ursula and her husband decide to retire in Derry after winning the lottery. You just have to laugh at the shenanigans that the family gets up to in the name of greed.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[PJ Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well..

..This is the most dysfunctional family I've ever read about, and I read a lot of books! They are an utter mess, like watching a car crash in slow motion I couldn't look away.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didnt like it to start with, but it grows on you rapidly with its scurrilous goings on and double dealing with real humour. Think Shameless in a Northern Irish setting. Now want to read more of the Derry Women sagas

[Bonnye Reed]

TheFussyLibrarian

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a dysfunctional family!

Ursala and her Yank husband have decided to retire to her homeland of Northern Ireland, specifically to Derry City (or Londonderry for you "Orange Proddy bastards"). Luckily they won the Lotto. Great, right? Not to her family. They have their hands out demanding they pay their way, but it's all gone now. Her sister-in-law, Fionnuala, is the leader of the pack who is now persecuting her. Her wanes (children) are all juvenile delinquents, except for Moira who has headed off to Malta to escape her family. The children are Lorcan who is already in jail, Dymphna who is 18 and not sure who the father is, Padraig who is 11 and making petrol bombs, Eoin is selling drugs, Siofra who is 8 is helping her brother sell drugs so she can buy a fancy first communion dress, and Seamus who is the youngest of the lot.

How much trouble can Ursala be in? The church choir has kicked her out. She forgets an appointment to help one of the OsteoCare clients. She catches Padraig making a petrol bomb outside her house yet she is sued by his family. She tries to get a caretakers allowance for her mother but discovers Fionnula has already claimed it even though it's Ursala who is taking care of her mother. Then, there is the disgrace she brought to her family during the Troubles and she can't live that down. I was always surprised by the troubles she's in.

There were parts of the story where I actually felt sorry for Ursala but then her mouth & temper got the best of her and she'd find more troubles.

This book is written in Irish slang. Fortunately, there is dictionary of Irish terms at the beginning of the book or else I would be lost.

Thank goodness I don't have a family like this.

[Goth Gone Grey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can't get past the dialect...

While the premise looked darkly entertaining, I stopped reading shortly after finding a three page dictionary (literally, in the midst of a chapter) to be able to understand the dialogue. Kindle loses over a printed book in this this regard - at least with a printed book you can leave a finger in the dictionary page to flip back and forth until you're familiar with it. I can understand such a thing for a fantasy world, but it makes this a laborious read that's not worth the effort. DNF at 10%.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gerald Hansen has made me laugh at these terrible people. They really have very little redeeming qualities. They remind of grown up versions of author Barbara Robinson's characters, The Herdman's.

[Emanuel]

it's an honor to get a copy of this book, directly from the author himself... :)

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There isn't a single likable character in this book, which is usually a dealbreaker for me, but they're an interesting group and the story is compelling.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula returned to her hometown of Derry six years ago. She wanted to see her family and take care of her elderly mother. But then she and her husband Jed had hit the lottery. They bought their dream house and new cars for each of them. Ursula renovated her mother's house and paid off her brother and sister-in-law's mortgage. But her sister-in-law, Fionnuala and her brood of children consider Ursula a cash machine. When the money starts running low, they turn against her in a campaign of causing misery dating back to Ursula's big scandal in the 1970's.

Fionnuala's family is a scandal in itself. Her oldest child is in prison. The next boy is dealing drugs on the street and owes his dealers money. Her daughter gets pregnant and is unsure who the lucky father might be, there being plenty of candidates. Another son has fallen in love with petrol bombs and mugging elderly pensioners on the street. Finally, her youngest daughter, about to make her First Communion, is ready to take up drug dealing and gets the money for her Communion gown by going to the local IRA group and getting them to fund it.

Gerald Hansen has lived all over the world but he has strong roots in Derry, which was his mother's hometown. He has this series which has several books following the woes of these feuding families and a mystery series, both set in Derry. Although everyone in the book is despicable in some way, Hansen's method of relaying their troubles and tribulations had me laughing on every page. The book is written in Derry slang so it takes a minute to adjust but these families are ones that the reader will long remember. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

[Texas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is barely a three star.

An Embarrassment of Riches – This is my first read by this author and I like and dislike it. I do not care for the cover but the author is Irish as are the characters, so I had to read it. There is a pronunciation guide for Irish names, always handy. The introduction to Guide to the Emerald Isle was entertaining and intriguing.

Now, for the story, there is just too much drama, hatefulness, criminals and this is one family. I read to twenty-five percent and could not take anymore. For some reason I though this book was suppose to be humorous, but…. I do not mind this type of book but I am not in the mood for the extreme negativity and the heavy usage of vulgar language – the family won’t be mistaken for lower middle class. 3*

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Ursula and Jed win a large sum of money, it causes a rift in the family, mainly instigated by Ursula's sister-in-law Fionnuala and Ursula finds herself up in court. Ever since a controversial incident she found herself caught up in during the '70s related to the IRA, Ursula can never seem to do anything right as far as her family is concerned anyway, yet she craves their love and approval. A story not for the faint-hearted (plenty of strong language and awful behaviour), introducing a pretty horrendous family that would put 'Shameless' to shame.

[Meghashyam Chirravoori · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me, no

I found this book - and two more of this author's - via The Fussy Librarian's recommendations. I was excited to read these, but it's unfortunate that I am not finding it to be an easy read. The Derry-speak is very draining for me. It's sad, because I was excited to read a best-selling author's works. I will try to give a shot to the other two free books of his, but I doubt much will change because they are about this Fiona (can't get her name right) character again, and she speaks a version of English I just don't understand.

[Erin Quinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars, though I didn't really enjoy it at all. These people are miserable human beings and I was frustrated with their appalling behavior. It's supposed to be a comedy, and I suppose it is, albeit a very dark one. Everyone is just so horrible, and poor Ursula. I mean she's kind of awful, too, but with that family, who wouldn't be?

[Michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried, but by page 30 I realized that there wasn't a single character that I liked. Also very difficult to read, given the fact that I had to keep jumping back to the list of slang terms to translate the dialogue. Now I know why almost every book in the series was free at one time or another.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for those who revile all words.

This was... Interesting. The Derry speak gave it a bit of a twist. I was unsure what year the events were supposed to take place though.

And not sure if it is a true depiction of Catholics in Derry.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Publishing Embarrassment

If you want to read a vulgar book filled with vile language then you are apt to enjoy this one, especially if you like a convoluted plot..

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting humorous insight into Derry life.For comedy reasons plot is exaggerated. Didn't really enjoy the book and humor was weak

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

couldn't have given tuppence for any one of the characters

[Erik Sapp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, and it start off good. But at some point, it just started to drag and never really get to the point.