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A River in the Trees
Two women. Two stories. One hundred years of secrets.
A sweeping novel of love, loss, family and history for readers who love Maggie O'Farrell, John Boyne and Donal Ryan
1919
Hannah is nineteen years old and living on her family's farm in West Cork. Her peaceful world is shattered forever by the eruption of the War of Independence, Ireland's bid for freedom from Britain. Hannah's family hide rebel soldiers in their attic, putting them in great danger from the Black and Tans who roam the countryside. An immediate connection between Hannah and O'Riada, the leader of this band of rebels, will change her life and that of her family forever.
2019
Ellen is at a crossroads in her life: her marriage is in trouble, her career is over and she's grieving the loss of a baby. After years in London, she decides to come home to Ireland to face the past she has always tried to escape. Her journey centres on an old house in the countryside, a house that used to belong to her family. Reaching into the past, she feels a connection to her aunt, the mysterious Hannah O'Donovan. But why won't anyone in her family talk about Hannah? And how can this journey help Ellen put her life back together?
A sweeping novel of love, loss, family and history for readers who love Maggie O'Farrell, John Boyne and Donal Ryan
1919
Hannah is nineteen years old and living on her family's farm in West Cork. Her peaceful world is shattered forever by the eruption of the War of Independence, Ireland's bid for freedom from Britain. Hannah's family hide rebel soldiers in their attic, putting them in great danger from the Black and Tans who roam the countryside. An immediate connection between Hannah and O'Riada, the leader of this band of rebels, will change her life and that of her family forever.
2019
Ellen is at a crossroads in her life: her marriage is in trouble, her career is over and she's grieving the loss of a baby. After years in London, she decides to come home to Ireland to face the past she has always tried to escape. Her journey centres on an old house in the countryside, a house that used to belong to her family. Reaching into the past, she feels a connection to her aunt, the mysterious Hannah O'Donovan. But why won't anyone in her family talk about Hannah? And how can this journey help Ellen put her life back together?
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2019
23 people are currently reading
624 people want to read
About the author
Jacqueline O'Mahony
2 books68 followersJacqueline O’Mahony was named Young Irish Writer of the Year by the Irish Examiner when she was fourteen.
She took her BA in Ireland, her MA at the University of Bologna, and her PhD in history at Boston College and as a Fulbright Scholar at Duke University.
She worked at Condé Nast as a stylist and editor for Vogue and at Associated Newspapers as an arts editor, and in 2015 she graduated from City University’s MA in creative writing with a first-class degree.
Her debut novel, A River in the Trees, was nominated for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Not the Booker Prize in 2020.
Originally from Cork, Ireland, she lives in London with her husband and three young children.
She took her BA in Ireland, her MA at the University of Bologna, and her PhD in history at Boston College and as a Fulbright Scholar at Duke University.
She worked at Condé Nast as a stylist and editor for Vogue and at Associated Newspapers as an arts editor, and in 2015 she graduated from City University’s MA in creative writing with a first-class degree.
Her debut novel, A River in the Trees, was nominated for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the Not the Booker Prize in 2020.
Originally from Cork, Ireland, she lives in London with her husband and three young children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
January 10, 2020
This book spent far too much time on my shelf, for which I beg forgiveness, the more that it is an absolutely fascinating book dealing with the past and the present of Ireland through complicated lives of two women.
The two protagonists live one hundred years apart, have different life experiences and handle their problems differently. What I liked a lot about the book was the theme of the house which connects them.
This book does not belong to the type described as page-turners, however, for me it turned out to be exactly this kind of a read.
*Many thanks to Jacqueline O'Mahony, Quercus Books and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review*
The two protagonists live one hundred years apart, have different life experiences and handle their problems differently. What I liked a lot about the book was the theme of the house which connects them.
This book does not belong to the type described as page-turners, however, for me it turned out to be exactly this kind of a read.
*Many thanks to Jacqueline O'Mahony, Quercus Books and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review*
December 21, 2018
Jacqueline O'Mahony writes of two women from the same family set a hundred years apart, with a narrative that goes back and forth in time, from the present to the past. In 1919 in West Cork, Ireland, Hannah O'Donovan has her life splintered apart amidst Ireland's efforts to throw off the yoke of English rule with the War of Independence. She and her father become involved in offering refuge to Irish rebels in their home, endangering their family as the British make their presence felt in the area. There are inescapable repercussions on Hannah's life and that of her family with her relationship to the leader of the rebels, O'Riada. In 2019 in London, a griefstricken Ellen has marriage problems and has suffered the loss of her baby. She makes the decision to return home to Ireland and deal with the issues that resulted in her departure from the country. She is drawn to the past and her ancestor, Hannah, but she is faced by silence from the family. Why?
This is a story of family, love, loss, betrayal, deceit, secrets that span across time. O'Mahony's historical fiction elements of the novel are atmospheric and stunning. It held my attention, and had me completely gripped, with the horrors of war laid out, the characters and the lack of integrity displayed by the English Army. In comparison to this, the present day parts of the story are lacklustre and struggle to hold its own with the past, which is a shame. I recommend reading this novel for the historical parts, readers will not regret reading A River in the Trees for this, here the author showcases her considerable writing talents. Perhaps in her next book, O'Mahony might like to purely focus on historical fiction as in this area she excels. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.
This is a story of family, love, loss, betrayal, deceit, secrets that span across time. O'Mahony's historical fiction elements of the novel are atmospheric and stunning. It held my attention, and had me completely gripped, with the horrors of war laid out, the characters and the lack of integrity displayed by the English Army. In comparison to this, the present day parts of the story are lacklustre and struggle to hold its own with the past, which is a shame. I recommend reading this novel for the historical parts, readers will not regret reading A River in the Trees for this, here the author showcases her considerable writing talents. Perhaps in her next book, O'Mahony might like to purely focus on historical fiction as in this area she excels. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.
January 4, 2019
I just love Irish lit and books that feature politics - and her debut novel clearly proves that Jacqueline O'Mahony knows how to write a captivating story. In this text, she elegantly interweaves two storylines: In 1919, during the War of Independence, young Hannah helps her father to hide rebel soldiers on their farm, falls in love with a young IRA fighter (mind you: As I learnt, thanks to the book, the "Old IRA" is not the same IRA we know today) and gets pregnant - which is very shameful for a young unmarried woman at the time. 100 years later, the marriage of Hannah's relative Ellen disintegrates because of her depression, rooted in her inability to have children. Ellen decides to leave London and come back to her native Ireland and Hannah's old family home in order to find stability and direction by connecting to her ancestors: She wants to know what happened to free-spirited Hannah and her baby.
O'Mahony connects these narrative strands by mirroring and opposing events in Hannah's and Ellen's lives, and once you get the technique, every turn of the story will make you wonder whether there will be a contrast or a mirror image in the other narrative strand. This way of connecting storylines does not play at the same level as, let's say The Maze at Windermere with its 5 alternating timelines, and it's also less subtle, but it clearly is effective and makes for a fun read. What bothered me though where the unneccessary excursions into the field of chick lit: "I have been blind, and only now do I begin to see." *sigh* "The house was calling out to her now, calling her name." *double sigh* Sentences like that really take away from a story full of good ideas.
I would also have loved to learn more about the war, and the time between Hannah's disappearance and Ellen's birth - we get hints at the developments in Ireland and the repercussions for the family, but I wanted to hear more about the political and historical background (of course these infos might be superfluous for Irish readers, I can't judge that). All in all, I think the story would have profited from a more sober approach - sometimes there's an overload of emotional descriptions which burden the text, especially as I am sure that the emotional effect could have been achieved without writing über-obvious sentences like the ones cited above. But as I said: Many, many passages in the book prove that Jacqueline O'Mahony can write, and I will read her next book as well.
O'Mahony connects these narrative strands by mirroring and opposing events in Hannah's and Ellen's lives, and once you get the technique, every turn of the story will make you wonder whether there will be a contrast or a mirror image in the other narrative strand. This way of connecting storylines does not play at the same level as, let's say The Maze at Windermere with its 5 alternating timelines, and it's also less subtle, but it clearly is effective and makes for a fun read. What bothered me though where the unneccessary excursions into the field of chick lit: "I have been blind, and only now do I begin to see." *sigh* "The house was calling out to her now, calling her name." *double sigh* Sentences like that really take away from a story full of good ideas.
I would also have loved to learn more about the war, and the time between Hannah's disappearance and Ellen's birth - we get hints at the developments in Ireland and the repercussions for the family, but I wanted to hear more about the political and historical background (of course these infos might be superfluous for Irish readers, I can't judge that). All in all, I think the story would have profited from a more sober approach - sometimes there's an overload of emotional descriptions which burden the text, especially as I am sure that the emotional effect could have been achieved without writing über-obvious sentences like the ones cited above. But as I said: Many, many passages in the book prove that Jacqueline O'Mahony can write, and I will read her next book as well.
November 28, 2018
This is what they have done to us, she thought. They have blackened our hearts
This a book which falls into two halves: the first part set in Ireland, 1919, is superb - a tight, intense tale, lyrically and powerfully told, worthy of 5 stars.
Interspersed, though, is one of those stories of the modern descendents of the first tale, set in 2019, of which authors seem to be so fond... even when it does little other than fill space. This part was a 2 star experience for me.
It feels to me that the 1919 story was written from the author's heart, the 2019 narrative from her head. You could cut the whole of the latter from the book and far from losing anything, would have a tauter, starker tale made more beautiful by its purity and lack of distractions.
Hannah in the 1919 story is a heroine with whom I fell in love, and the narrative is written in achingly gorgeous prose, full of the cadences of Irish speech. It's a brutal tale of acts of war, not least the shameful behaviour of the English army in Ireland, and betrayal on all kinds of levels. It reads effortlessly: character, plot, language, atmosphere all woven together seamlessly. Such a shame, then, that this magnificent story keeps being forcibly interrupted by the uninteresting 2019 sections... It's a common mistake of debut novelists, trying to cram in too much - how sad that an editor or early reader didn't pare this one back.
Still, the 1919 story is outstanding and crafted perfectly - O'Mahoney is definitely on my watch-list after this.
Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC via NetGalley.
December 13, 2020
Set in the rural south of Ireland, partly in 1919 during the early days of the Irish War of Independence and partly in 2019 (a full hundred years later), O’Mahony’s novel initially masquerades as a mix of family saga, historical, and psychological fiction. It is soon enough revealed to be a combination of mildly cheesy historical romance and unconvincing mid-life-crisis narrative about a woman with infertility and marital problems.
The novel opens in 1919, with the O’Donovan family in their farmhouse kitchen awaiting a group of young volunteer Irish “freedom fighters”—led by the dashing Padraic O’Riada—whom they have agreed to shelter from the Black and Tans*, constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary, most of whom have been recruited from England to suppress the IRA. Nineteen-year-old Hannah, the eldest O’Donovan daughter and her father’s favourite, is sympathetic to the cause and the likely reason he’s agreed to allow these fugitives into the house at all.
Once the men are ensconced in the secret attic room, it is Hannah who brings them their meal and tells them what to do when the Tans make an earlier-than-expected raid. On first encountering him, Hannah experiences a powerful attraction to the striking O’Riada. After the Tans’ attack leaves the young woman roughed-up and bleeding and her father badly injured with multiple fractures and blind in one eye, she walks outside to meet O’Riada There will be further trouble between O’Riada and the Tans on the O’Donovan farm, an armed conflict in which Hannah, an excellent shot, will play a pivotal role. She and the rest of the family will become the stuff of local legend.
For most of the book, chapters alternate between Hannah’s story (the better one by far, for what it’s worth) and that of Ellen, her 21st-century Irish-born descendent, a beauty columnist with a large British newspaper. Ellen lives in luxury in London with her wealthy, handsome, and increasingly distant husband, Simon. Now thirty-eight (twice Hannah’s age), Ellen has had several miscarriages and, recently, a stillbirth. When she’s not lamenting her lost youth and beauty, obsessing about her thick legs and clutching at her abdominal fat, she engages in interior moan-ologues about having had a Mammy who didn’t love her, no friends, and a mocking, disdainful husband. She alternates between histrionics—wanting “to run around the fields pulling her clothes off” in an act of defiance against the “tight little box of explaining herself to Simon”—and passivity: wishing she could just fade away into the earth. At first, I believed she was in Ireland to commit suicide, but, no, she’s apparently learned that the O’Donovan farm is on the market. She seems to be possessed of the odd notion that purchasing it, on her unloving husband’s dime, will restore her to psychological health. While staying at a hotel not far from the ancestral home, she does learn a fair bit about the O’Donovans from the locals, including a surprising secret that has personal relevance. On the whole, however, unlike the character herself, Ellen’s story is remarkably thin
In case you haven’t noticed, I didn’t get on with this book. The problems came thick and fast, starting on page 3, when Ellen notices, while driving, that her breasts are “sitting on the high mound of her stomach.” But wait; it gets worse: those breasts “begin nuzzling each other like little overfed animals.” I could go on, but I won’t.
I’m sure there are some great novels about Irish War of Independence, and I bet there are a few good ones about the stories old houses could tell. This, alas, is not one of them.
*It should be noted that O’Mahony has gotten her dates wrong. The Black and Tans began active duty in 1920, not 1919. I consulted multiple sources to confirm this. Here’s a brief section of an article that appeared in the Irish Times earlier this year:
The first Black and Tans arrived in March 1920 where they received cursory training at a depot in the Phoenix Park; subsequent recruits were trained at Gormanstown. There was a surge in recruitment later in 1920 as the British economy struggled, with more than 1,100 recruits joining the force in October 1920 alone. Eventually, over 8,000 of them were to serve in Ireland and most were sent to Cork, Tipperary, Galway, Clare, Limerick and Kerry.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/he...
The novel opens in 1919, with the O’Donovan family in their farmhouse kitchen awaiting a group of young volunteer Irish “freedom fighters”—led by the dashing Padraic O’Riada—whom they have agreed to shelter from the Black and Tans*, constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary, most of whom have been recruited from England to suppress the IRA. Nineteen-year-old Hannah, the eldest O’Donovan daughter and her father’s favourite, is sympathetic to the cause and the likely reason he’s agreed to allow these fugitives into the house at all.
Once the men are ensconced in the secret attic room, it is Hannah who brings them their meal and tells them what to do when the Tans make an earlier-than-expected raid. On first encountering him, Hannah experiences a powerful attraction to the striking O’Riada. After the Tans’ attack leaves the young woman roughed-up and bleeding and her father badly injured with multiple fractures and blind in one eye, she walks outside to meet O’Riada There will be further trouble between O’Riada and the Tans on the O’Donovan farm, an armed conflict in which Hannah, an excellent shot, will play a pivotal role. She and the rest of the family will become the stuff of local legend.
For most of the book, chapters alternate between Hannah’s story (the better one by far, for what it’s worth) and that of Ellen, her 21st-century Irish-born descendent, a beauty columnist with a large British newspaper. Ellen lives in luxury in London with her wealthy, handsome, and increasingly distant husband, Simon. Now thirty-eight (twice Hannah’s age), Ellen has had several miscarriages and, recently, a stillbirth. When she’s not lamenting her lost youth and beauty, obsessing about her thick legs and clutching at her abdominal fat, she engages in interior moan-ologues about having had a Mammy who didn’t love her, no friends, and a mocking, disdainful husband. She alternates between histrionics—wanting “to run around the fields pulling her clothes off” in an act of defiance against the “tight little box of explaining herself to Simon”—and passivity: wishing she could just fade away into the earth. At first, I believed she was in Ireland to commit suicide, but, no, she’s apparently learned that the O’Donovan farm is on the market. She seems to be possessed of the odd notion that purchasing it, on her unloving husband’s dime, will restore her to psychological health. While staying at a hotel not far from the ancestral home, she does learn a fair bit about the O’Donovans from the locals, including a surprising secret that has personal relevance. On the whole, however, unlike the character herself, Ellen’s story is remarkably thin
In case you haven’t noticed, I didn’t get on with this book. The problems came thick and fast, starting on page 3, when Ellen notices, while driving, that her breasts are “sitting on the high mound of her stomach.” But wait; it gets worse: those breasts “begin nuzzling each other like little overfed animals.” I could go on, but I won’t.
I’m sure there are some great novels about Irish War of Independence, and I bet there are a few good ones about the stories old houses could tell. This, alas, is not one of them.
*It should be noted that O’Mahony has gotten her dates wrong. The Black and Tans began active duty in 1920, not 1919. I consulted multiple sources to confirm this. Here’s a brief section of an article that appeared in the Irish Times earlier this year:
The first Black and Tans arrived in March 1920 where they received cursory training at a depot in the Phoenix Park; subsequent recruits were trained at Gormanstown. There was a surge in recruitment later in 1920 as the British economy struggled, with more than 1,100 recruits joining the force in October 1920 alone. Eventually, over 8,000 of them were to serve in Ireland and most were sent to Cork, Tipperary, Galway, Clare, Limerick and Kerry.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/he...
January 12, 2019
Told from alternating points of view, the stories and experiences of the two women – Hannah in 1919 and Ellen in the present day – subtly mirror each other in some respects and provide contrasts in others. The author leaves it to the reader to make the connections or note the differences between how the two women respond to the events that unfold in their lives and the choices they make.
Ellen is a troubled, lost soul, seemingly suffering from a form of post-natal depression, who has turned to alcohol as an emotional crutch and reached a crisis point in her life. ‘I’m in a tunnel now, she thought – my life is narrowing down and down and behind me is every wrong decision I’ve ever made and ahead of me if only fear, and I can’t move forwards, and I can’t move back.’ The loss of their baby has exposed the pre-existing fissures in the relationship between Ellen and her husband, Simon. Their instincts, choices and responses to events seem so fundamentally different it is no surprise that their marriage is in trouble. (What is a surprise is that they married in the first place). ‘There was so much of Simon and he was so sure of himself and so unshakeable; he moved through his days like a ship moving through an icy sea, breaking through the ice before him, unaffected, untouchable.’ In a way, Ellen’s interest in Hannah’s story is a distraction from having to think about her own future. She has spent her whole life running away from things. ‘It is easier to leave, to disappear, she thought sadly. The harder thing is to stay and face yourself.’
The sections written from Ellen’s point of view, especially as she struggles to control her anxiety, evoked feelings of sympathy in this reader but she is a character it is difficult to really like. I felt more personally engaged in Hannah’s story and concern for how the unfolding events would affect her, especially as I was drawn to the historical aspects of her story. From fairly early on, the reader knows there is some mystery about what happened to Hannah – but will the answers be revealed by Hannah herself or by Ellen’s discovery of details about past events?
I found myself thinking as I was reading the sections from Hannah’s point of view that I wished I knew more (or perhaps should know more) about the history of Ireland in the early part of the 20th century. The reader gets a strong sense of Ireland and Irish identity from the way in which the author writes about its landscape, culture and history and the narrative and dialogue is gently permeated with the rhythm and vernacular of the Irish language. Through Hannah’s deeply felt connection with her family home and lands, and Ellen’s desire to own something that connects her to her ancestral roots, I was left with a sense of Ireland as a place that inhabits those who are born there, even if they move away.
The book is full of clever, skilful writing, imaginative language and evocative descriptions: ‘The ditches on either side were too high to see over. It was like descending into a sea of green water: the air was green, the sky overhead was green; the car was swimming through the greenness.’
A River in the Trees is an assured and impressive debut. From the dramatic opening scene, I found myself transfixed by the story it tells and I look forward to reading more from Jacqueline O’Mahony in future.
I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, riverrun, and NetGalley.
Ellen is a troubled, lost soul, seemingly suffering from a form of post-natal depression, who has turned to alcohol as an emotional crutch and reached a crisis point in her life. ‘I’m in a tunnel now, she thought – my life is narrowing down and down and behind me is every wrong decision I’ve ever made and ahead of me if only fear, and I can’t move forwards, and I can’t move back.’ The loss of their baby has exposed the pre-existing fissures in the relationship between Ellen and her husband, Simon. Their instincts, choices and responses to events seem so fundamentally different it is no surprise that their marriage is in trouble. (What is a surprise is that they married in the first place). ‘There was so much of Simon and he was so sure of himself and so unshakeable; he moved through his days like a ship moving through an icy sea, breaking through the ice before him, unaffected, untouchable.’ In a way, Ellen’s interest in Hannah’s story is a distraction from having to think about her own future. She has spent her whole life running away from things. ‘It is easier to leave, to disappear, she thought sadly. The harder thing is to stay and face yourself.’
The sections written from Ellen’s point of view, especially as she struggles to control her anxiety, evoked feelings of sympathy in this reader but she is a character it is difficult to really like. I felt more personally engaged in Hannah’s story and concern for how the unfolding events would affect her, especially as I was drawn to the historical aspects of her story. From fairly early on, the reader knows there is some mystery about what happened to Hannah – but will the answers be revealed by Hannah herself or by Ellen’s discovery of details about past events?
I found myself thinking as I was reading the sections from Hannah’s point of view that I wished I knew more (or perhaps should know more) about the history of Ireland in the early part of the 20th century. The reader gets a strong sense of Ireland and Irish identity from the way in which the author writes about its landscape, culture and history and the narrative and dialogue is gently permeated with the rhythm and vernacular of the Irish language. Through Hannah’s deeply felt connection with her family home and lands, and Ellen’s desire to own something that connects her to her ancestral roots, I was left with a sense of Ireland as a place that inhabits those who are born there, even if they move away.
The book is full of clever, skilful writing, imaginative language and evocative descriptions: ‘The ditches on either side were too high to see over. It was like descending into a sea of green water: the air was green, the sky overhead was green; the car was swimming through the greenness.’
A River in the Trees is an assured and impressive debut. From the dramatic opening scene, I found myself transfixed by the story it tells and I look forward to reading more from Jacqueline O’Mahony in future.
I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, riverrun, and NetGalley.
January 10, 2019
This is the type of book that I absolutely love! A dual timeline story seeped in interesting history and some fabulous characters makes it a perfect read for me.
The story follows Hannah in 1919 who helps her father fight for Irish independence and Ellen in 2019 who is struggling with life and wants to try and work through her problems by visiting her ancestry. Although both stories were interesting I did prefer Hannah’s story as she was the fiesty, independent character that I love to read about. Her guts and determination to fight for her family’s beliefs was wonderful to read about. I was completely on her side and really wanted there to be a good outcome for her and her family. That’s not to say Ellen’s story wasn’t interesting I just found it a little slower paced than Hannah’s and I didn’t take to her as a character straight away, finding her a little depressing. However I did warm to her as the story continued and it was very interesting to see her investigation into her past develop.
The author has a fabulous way of setting the scene for this book so that the reader can really picture it in their minds eye. The wonderfully vivid pictures of the Irish countryside along with the Irish language really helped to bring the setting to life for me. I sadly don’t know much about The War of Independence so I found the historical details very fascinating. The courage and bravery of the Irish people was wonderful to read about making what happens all the more poignant.
The story is quite fast paced and very absorbing. I found myself staying up to read a few more chapters of the book fully emersed in what was happening. The author shows great skill in weaving a fabulous story of war, bravery and ultimately betrayal which takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It’s a story I felt very sad to have finished.
This is the first book by this author I have read and I really look forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like gripping, dual timeline historical fiction then you’ll love this book.
Huge thanks to Quercus for my copy of this book via Netgalley and to Ana from Quercus for inviting me onto the blog tour.
The story follows Hannah in 1919 who helps her father fight for Irish independence and Ellen in 2019 who is struggling with life and wants to try and work through her problems by visiting her ancestry. Although both stories were interesting I did prefer Hannah’s story as she was the fiesty, independent character that I love to read about. Her guts and determination to fight for her family’s beliefs was wonderful to read about. I was completely on her side and really wanted there to be a good outcome for her and her family. That’s not to say Ellen’s story wasn’t interesting I just found it a little slower paced than Hannah’s and I didn’t take to her as a character straight away, finding her a little depressing. However I did warm to her as the story continued and it was very interesting to see her investigation into her past develop.
The author has a fabulous way of setting the scene for this book so that the reader can really picture it in their minds eye. The wonderfully vivid pictures of the Irish countryside along with the Irish language really helped to bring the setting to life for me. I sadly don’t know much about The War of Independence so I found the historical details very fascinating. The courage and bravery of the Irish people was wonderful to read about making what happens all the more poignant.
The story is quite fast paced and very absorbing. I found myself staying up to read a few more chapters of the book fully emersed in what was happening. The author shows great skill in weaving a fabulous story of war, bravery and ultimately betrayal which takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It’s a story I felt very sad to have finished.
This is the first book by this author I have read and I really look forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like gripping, dual timeline historical fiction then you’ll love this book.
Huge thanks to Quercus for my copy of this book via Netgalley and to Ana from Quercus for inviting me onto the blog tour.
January 9, 2019
A River in The Trees tells the story of Hannah and Ellen, who are from the same family, but 100 years apart. In 1919, Hannah and her family were involved in the War of Independence where they helped hide the rebels from the British army. In 2019, Ellen, broken and in grief after the loss of her baby, went back to Ireland in the hope of saving her marriage and most importantly saving herself.
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The book's narrative alternated between the events of the two timelines; Hannah back in 1919 and Ellen in the present time. This is what I love the most about this book. Intertwining the past and present really captivated me from start to finish. Sooner or later, I found myself trying to see if there was any similarity in the events happening to Hannah in the past to the story of Ellen. Was it a repeat of a history or were the fates of these two characters completely different?
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I was engrossed in the events happening to Hannah in 1919. I love Hannah as a character, what a strong-willed and brave young woman. She, in my mind, singlehandedly saved her whole family while making the impossible sacrifice. This part of the story was told so intensively, so effortlessly I found myself drawn to the characters so very much. I loved it. On the other hand, I did have apprehensive feelings about the story for Ellen in the present time. While I was reading the book, I kept asking myself whether I liked Ellen? I feel sorry for Ellen but do I actually like her? If I have a chance to meet with the author one day, I would definitely ask her if it was intentional to make Ellen a controversial character or whether she left readers to figure it out themselves.
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While I did find the book had a slow start and I didn't resonate with everything that was happening to Ellen at present time, I did enjoy the book very much. I keep asking myself, even days after finishing it, what happened to Hannah and what is going to happen to Ellen? I still want answers!
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The book's narrative alternated between the events of the two timelines; Hannah back in 1919 and Ellen in the present time. This is what I love the most about this book. Intertwining the past and present really captivated me from start to finish. Sooner or later, I found myself trying to see if there was any similarity in the events happening to Hannah in the past to the story of Ellen. Was it a repeat of a history or were the fates of these two characters completely different?
📚
I was engrossed in the events happening to Hannah in 1919. I love Hannah as a character, what a strong-willed and brave young woman. She, in my mind, singlehandedly saved her whole family while making the impossible sacrifice. This part of the story was told so intensively, so effortlessly I found myself drawn to the characters so very much. I loved it. On the other hand, I did have apprehensive feelings about the story for Ellen in the present time. While I was reading the book, I kept asking myself whether I liked Ellen? I feel sorry for Ellen but do I actually like her? If I have a chance to meet with the author one day, I would definitely ask her if it was intentional to make Ellen a controversial character or whether she left readers to figure it out themselves.
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While I did find the book had a slow start and I didn't resonate with everything that was happening to Ellen at present time, I did enjoy the book very much. I keep asking myself, even days after finishing it, what happened to Hannah and what is going to happen to Ellen? I still want answers!
August 5, 2019
A well written book with a dual timeline. The present day and Ireland in 1919, a shameful time when the Tans ruled Ireland and killed people for fun.
I have an interest in this era as my Grand-Uncle fought in the Civil War. He was shot in the leg while on sentry duty one night and it bothered him for the rest of his life. I remember him as a real gentleman and couldn't envision him firing a gun.
This was a truly depressing read. There was no lightness in it at all. The historical part was overwhelmingly sad. Fear is the main emotion here.
The modern day story wasn't any lighter. Ellen's self pity was endless and annoyed me most of the time. If she was a real person, I would avoid her like the plague. She constantly moaned about how bad her life was but did absolutely nothing to change it. She degraded herself over and over by the way she acted. Maybe we were meant to feel sorry for her but I couldn't, not for one minute.
Having said all that, the story kept me reading and I read it in two days.
I have an interest in this era as my Grand-Uncle fought in the Civil War. He was shot in the leg while on sentry duty one night and it bothered him for the rest of his life. I remember him as a real gentleman and couldn't envision him firing a gun.
This was a truly depressing read. There was no lightness in it at all. The historical part was overwhelmingly sad. Fear is the main emotion here.
The modern day story wasn't any lighter. Ellen's self pity was endless and annoyed me most of the time. If she was a real person, I would avoid her like the plague. She constantly moaned about how bad her life was but did absolutely nothing to change it. She degraded herself over and over by the way she acted. Maybe we were meant to feel sorry for her but I couldn't, not for one minute.
Having said all that, the story kept me reading and I read it in two days.
February 6, 2019
*My Rating 3.5*
Two women
Two stories
One hundred years of secrets
A River in the Trees is the debut novel from London-based, but Cork-born, writer Jacqueline O’ Mahony and was published by riverrun (an imprint of Quercus Books)
A dual time story, it is described as a novel ‘about families, secrets and the impossibility of coming home.’
Being a native Corkonian I was intrigued to read this book
A River in The Trees is set in a small town in West Cork. It’s 1919 and the Irish War of Independence is tearing families apart, as neighbours fight against neighbour, with alliances being established and enemies made. As tensions heighten, the violence increases and with the arrival of the Black and Tans, many fear for their lives. These group of soldiers were initially sent to Ireland to maintain the peace but, as history tells us, this was not the case. The countryside of Ireland became a hideout for those who fought for her independence. (A minor historical note…the Black and Tans came to Ireland in March 1920 and not 1919 as the book alludes to) As the body count rose, reprisals were instigated and the violence escalated to frightening levels on both sides. The local parishioners were at the brunt of the reprisals taken by the Black and Tans, with shootings and torturous actions becoming common place.
For Hannah O’ Donovan and her family, their home became a refuge for those seeking a safe place to lay low for a bit. After an attack left a group of British soldiers dead, brutally murdered by a small group of Irish Freedom Fighters, Hannah’s father is asked to shelter the men involved.
‘The lorry they blew up was carrying the general from the train station to the barracks..And by god, they say they blew it to heaven. There were bits of bodies everywhere. The birds will be eating the flesh off the trees in Skibbereen for days to come yet. The general himself was thrown clear of the lorry and O’ Riada finished him off with a shot to the head, close range..’
With the arrival that night of O’ Riada and his men, nineteen-year-old Hannah is taken aback by her feelings for this man. He is a man of violence, a rebel fighting for freedom, surviving off the goodwill of sympathisers, and living off his wits. This is not a man she should love. This is not a man she should have any affection for, but her heart says very differently.
Meanwhile we fast forward to 2019. Ellen is coming home. With her life in London falling down around her, Ellen is going through a very bad patch and is looking to her family’s past to help her move forward with her own future. It came to her attention that the ancestral family home in West Cork is up for sale and she is intent on visiting it, with the option of putting an offer in for it. Ellen has an estranged relationship with her own family having left home many years previously. This fracture in her family life has continued through to her married life, leaving Ellen saddened by the way her life has turned out. She feels overweight, tired and depressed, turning to alcohol for some comfort.
As Ellen views the house with the local estate agent, she is aware of a presence in the rooms. Something happened in this house and Ellen intends to find out. Ellen becomes a little obsessed with the history of her family and through her search for the truth, the reader is taken back to 1919 and to the story of Hannah O’ Donovan.
A River in the Trees, for me, was an interesting story as it brought the history of my own past to life. My grandparents, maternal and paternal, were from West Cork and I would have heard stories over the years, relating to these times. There are characters mentioned, whose names are familiar to me. There are references to the difficulties for many of surviving in Cork city, especially for folk who had to leave the land behind during these bad days, times I would have heard mention of. I do have to say that I probably did read this book with quite a critical eye, so there were, for me, a few questionable areas, but to be fair I don’t think most readers would spot these.
I really really enjoyed Hannah’s story. Jacqueline O’ Mahony handled it very well and I really wanted to know more about what happened to her. Her character felt very real. Ellen, admittedly, didn’t appeal to me at all, with her obsession about her looks and her very erratic behaviour. One hundred years apart and these two women could not have been more different. Hannah was strong, passionate, capable, whereas Ellen was quite the opposite.
A River in the Trees is a very impressive debut. Jacqueline O’ Mahony is a history graduate and I would really love to see her write more within the historical genre. Her portrayal of Hannah’s story felt very authentic bringing the violence and the trauma of those days very vividly to life for the reader.
Two women
Two stories
One hundred years of secrets
A River in the Trees is the debut novel from London-based, but Cork-born, writer Jacqueline O’ Mahony and was published by riverrun (an imprint of Quercus Books)
A dual time story, it is described as a novel ‘about families, secrets and the impossibility of coming home.’
Being a native Corkonian I was intrigued to read this book
A River in The Trees is set in a small town in West Cork. It’s 1919 and the Irish War of Independence is tearing families apart, as neighbours fight against neighbour, with alliances being established and enemies made. As tensions heighten, the violence increases and with the arrival of the Black and Tans, many fear for their lives. These group of soldiers were initially sent to Ireland to maintain the peace but, as history tells us, this was not the case. The countryside of Ireland became a hideout for those who fought for her independence. (A minor historical note…the Black and Tans came to Ireland in March 1920 and not 1919 as the book alludes to) As the body count rose, reprisals were instigated and the violence escalated to frightening levels on both sides. The local parishioners were at the brunt of the reprisals taken by the Black and Tans, with shootings and torturous actions becoming common place.
For Hannah O’ Donovan and her family, their home became a refuge for those seeking a safe place to lay low for a bit. After an attack left a group of British soldiers dead, brutally murdered by a small group of Irish Freedom Fighters, Hannah’s father is asked to shelter the men involved.
‘The lorry they blew up was carrying the general from the train station to the barracks..And by god, they say they blew it to heaven. There were bits of bodies everywhere. The birds will be eating the flesh off the trees in Skibbereen for days to come yet. The general himself was thrown clear of the lorry and O’ Riada finished him off with a shot to the head, close range..’
With the arrival that night of O’ Riada and his men, nineteen-year-old Hannah is taken aback by her feelings for this man. He is a man of violence, a rebel fighting for freedom, surviving off the goodwill of sympathisers, and living off his wits. This is not a man she should love. This is not a man she should have any affection for, but her heart says very differently.
Meanwhile we fast forward to 2019. Ellen is coming home. With her life in London falling down around her, Ellen is going through a very bad patch and is looking to her family’s past to help her move forward with her own future. It came to her attention that the ancestral family home in West Cork is up for sale and she is intent on visiting it, with the option of putting an offer in for it. Ellen has an estranged relationship with her own family having left home many years previously. This fracture in her family life has continued through to her married life, leaving Ellen saddened by the way her life has turned out. She feels overweight, tired and depressed, turning to alcohol for some comfort.
As Ellen views the house with the local estate agent, she is aware of a presence in the rooms. Something happened in this house and Ellen intends to find out. Ellen becomes a little obsessed with the history of her family and through her search for the truth, the reader is taken back to 1919 and to the story of Hannah O’ Donovan.
A River in the Trees, for me, was an interesting story as it brought the history of my own past to life. My grandparents, maternal and paternal, were from West Cork and I would have heard stories over the years, relating to these times. There are characters mentioned, whose names are familiar to me. There are references to the difficulties for many of surviving in Cork city, especially for folk who had to leave the land behind during these bad days, times I would have heard mention of. I do have to say that I probably did read this book with quite a critical eye, so there were, for me, a few questionable areas, but to be fair I don’t think most readers would spot these.
I really really enjoyed Hannah’s story. Jacqueline O’ Mahony handled it very well and I really wanted to know more about what happened to her. Her character felt very real. Ellen, admittedly, didn’t appeal to me at all, with her obsession about her looks and her very erratic behaviour. One hundred years apart and these two women could not have been more different. Hannah was strong, passionate, capable, whereas Ellen was quite the opposite.
A River in the Trees is a very impressive debut. Jacqueline O’ Mahony is a history graduate and I would really love to see her write more within the historical genre. Her portrayal of Hannah’s story felt very authentic bringing the violence and the trauma of those days very vividly to life for the reader.
January 20, 2019
‘“We are a nothing people to them,” he’d said. “A nothing people.”’
I’ve always had an affinity with Irish history. I got very deep into it when I was in my twenties and read extensively from the famine through to the troubles. I’m still drawn to all things Irish, inexplicably so, but I guess we all have our areas of interest, even if we can’t quite articulate our reasoning. All of this has led to me having a solid grasp on the Irish War of Independence, so I was in good stead for reading this novel. I felt in many ways this was a novel for an Irish audience, or at least for one where some familiarity on the basic details of Irish history would be known prior to reading. The author doesn’t give a history lesson with the pages of this novel, instead, it is assumed the reader will either understand or seek clarification from elsewhere. I actually really liked that about this novel, it made me feel present within the text, as though I had just slipped into their lives at this particular point in time. There are two stories contained within this novel but they are of course heavily connected. There are just as many parallels between the lives of Hannah and Ellen as there are differences. It’s up to the reader to ascertain these threads.
‘It was already completely bright in the room; the savage light was beating against the wall in front of her. There was nothing as depressing as that hard, flat, empty early morning Irish light. It stripped everything bare; it made you feel bleached down to the bone. It was hard to get away from yourself in this kind of light.’
Ireland itself is like a character within this novel. It pulsates with history and its own atmosphere, clinging to the characters with a visceral connection. I have come across this notion before, that the Irish never truly leave Ireland behind.
‘She had never felt fully alive after leaving Ireland. She had never been fully herself, again.’
‘She was broken enough now, finally, to be able to come home.’
One personal tragedy after another has splintered Ellen. She loathes herself, is suffering from a devastating mix of postnatal depression and grief. She might have been prickly and at times just plain cold, but goodness my heart went out to her. The burden of what she had been through. She travels back to Ireland to purchase the family farm that was lost to them in the 1920s. She becomes interested in her great-aunt Hannah’s story, feeling an affinity with her, driven by a desire to take back a piece of Ireland, as though this may fill the void within left behind from all that she has lost. It shows a special skill as a writer to craft a character that acts so unpleasantly, with such self-destruction, whilst also generating empathy from the reader. Ellen was complicated, but my heart was in her corner all the same.
‘They would wipe her out, these men. They wouldn’t leave her room to breathe and she would have to make herself so little and so quiet to fit into the space they left behind them that she would have to get smaller and smaller all the time and eventually – soon – she would just disappear with a small damp pop, like a bubble.’
Hannah was caught up in the Irish War of Independence, which I’ll be frank, at that point in time, if you were Irish born, it would have been near on impossible to not be caught up in it. Ireland has been besieged by troubles for so long, but this particular time was fraught with danger. This war was active from 1919 until 1921, between the IRA and the British Security forces, but the seeds of it had been germinated back in 1916 with the Easter Rising. In 1921, both sides agreed to a ceasefire and Ireland was partitioned, creating Northern Ireland, where British rule was henceforth contained, with the remainder of Ireland becoming the Irish Free State. When we meet Hannah, the war is at its beginning, escalating rapidly. Her family hides IRA men, and they are consequently a target for raids.
‘“Look at my face. Look at my hands. That’s Daddy’s blood on my hands. Do you see it? Do you see what they’ve done to us?”
She put her hands in front of Eily’s face. She tried to turn her face away and Hannah caught her by the shoulders and pinned her back against the chair and then rubbed, savagely, her hands all over her face. Her face was small and as fragile as a child’s; she could feel its little bones compress and crack like greenwood under the force of her hands. It would be easy to break the bones in her face, she thought. She could crush her little face, if she wanted.’
You would not ever be able to live with this and remain neutral. Not when merely existing as an Irish person would have branded you as a target.
‘“They’ve their backs to the wall now, and they’re lashing out at our lads. You can’t put your hands in your pockets now when you’re out in Mallow town. They’ll shoot you on sight if you have your hands in your pockets.” He shook his head in wonder at it all. “Imagine that. Can you imagine being shot down on the road for having your hands in your pockets?”’
This novel is not about who was right and who was wrong. It’s not an historical account of the Irish War of Independence. It’s a story about a family, the hard truth about life and how it doesn’t always work out in the end. Hannah’s story touched me deeply; what a devastating way to come of age. The times were so fraught with danger, from so many fronts, the old world still grasping at everyone’s coat tails despite the modern world beckoning from beyond. You were never really in control of your own life if you were Irish, much less so if you were a woman.
‘The shot echoed around the yard and over the stones and bounced back at her from the walls, breaking the air, splintering the morning light. A cloud of crows lifted from the trees on the hill like so many black rags and spiralled away across the sky, calling back sadly to each other as they did, come away, come away.’
Jacqueline O’Mahony writes with such instinct; her prose is unflinching in its honesty, devastatingly beautiful and so atmospheric, I had goosebumps while reading. I adored this novel, so very much. I recommend it highly, but temper this with a caution as it’s not a happy novel. But often times, the greatest ones aren’t.
‘Every love story is a great love story in the beginning, and then the middle comes, and then, an end.’
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of A River in the Trees for review.
I’ve always had an affinity with Irish history. I got very deep into it when I was in my twenties and read extensively from the famine through to the troubles. I’m still drawn to all things Irish, inexplicably so, but I guess we all have our areas of interest, even if we can’t quite articulate our reasoning. All of this has led to me having a solid grasp on the Irish War of Independence, so I was in good stead for reading this novel. I felt in many ways this was a novel for an Irish audience, or at least for one where some familiarity on the basic details of Irish history would be known prior to reading. The author doesn’t give a history lesson with the pages of this novel, instead, it is assumed the reader will either understand or seek clarification from elsewhere. I actually really liked that about this novel, it made me feel present within the text, as though I had just slipped into their lives at this particular point in time. There are two stories contained within this novel but they are of course heavily connected. There are just as many parallels between the lives of Hannah and Ellen as there are differences. It’s up to the reader to ascertain these threads.
‘It was already completely bright in the room; the savage light was beating against the wall in front of her. There was nothing as depressing as that hard, flat, empty early morning Irish light. It stripped everything bare; it made you feel bleached down to the bone. It was hard to get away from yourself in this kind of light.’
Ireland itself is like a character within this novel. It pulsates with history and its own atmosphere, clinging to the characters with a visceral connection. I have come across this notion before, that the Irish never truly leave Ireland behind.
‘She had never felt fully alive after leaving Ireland. She had never been fully herself, again.’
‘She was broken enough now, finally, to be able to come home.’
One personal tragedy after another has splintered Ellen. She loathes herself, is suffering from a devastating mix of postnatal depression and grief. She might have been prickly and at times just plain cold, but goodness my heart went out to her. The burden of what she had been through. She travels back to Ireland to purchase the family farm that was lost to them in the 1920s. She becomes interested in her great-aunt Hannah’s story, feeling an affinity with her, driven by a desire to take back a piece of Ireland, as though this may fill the void within left behind from all that she has lost. It shows a special skill as a writer to craft a character that acts so unpleasantly, with such self-destruction, whilst also generating empathy from the reader. Ellen was complicated, but my heart was in her corner all the same.
‘They would wipe her out, these men. They wouldn’t leave her room to breathe and she would have to make herself so little and so quiet to fit into the space they left behind them that she would have to get smaller and smaller all the time and eventually – soon – she would just disappear with a small damp pop, like a bubble.’
Hannah was caught up in the Irish War of Independence, which I’ll be frank, at that point in time, if you were Irish born, it would have been near on impossible to not be caught up in it. Ireland has been besieged by troubles for so long, but this particular time was fraught with danger. This war was active from 1919 until 1921, between the IRA and the British Security forces, but the seeds of it had been germinated back in 1916 with the Easter Rising. In 1921, both sides agreed to a ceasefire and Ireland was partitioned, creating Northern Ireland, where British rule was henceforth contained, with the remainder of Ireland becoming the Irish Free State. When we meet Hannah, the war is at its beginning, escalating rapidly. Her family hides IRA men, and they are consequently a target for raids.
‘“Look at my face. Look at my hands. That’s Daddy’s blood on my hands. Do you see it? Do you see what they’ve done to us?”
She put her hands in front of Eily’s face. She tried to turn her face away and Hannah caught her by the shoulders and pinned her back against the chair and then rubbed, savagely, her hands all over her face. Her face was small and as fragile as a child’s; she could feel its little bones compress and crack like greenwood under the force of her hands. It would be easy to break the bones in her face, she thought. She could crush her little face, if she wanted.’
You would not ever be able to live with this and remain neutral. Not when merely existing as an Irish person would have branded you as a target.
‘“They’ve their backs to the wall now, and they’re lashing out at our lads. You can’t put your hands in your pockets now when you’re out in Mallow town. They’ll shoot you on sight if you have your hands in your pockets.” He shook his head in wonder at it all. “Imagine that. Can you imagine being shot down on the road for having your hands in your pockets?”’
This novel is not about who was right and who was wrong. It’s not an historical account of the Irish War of Independence. It’s a story about a family, the hard truth about life and how it doesn’t always work out in the end. Hannah’s story touched me deeply; what a devastating way to come of age. The times were so fraught with danger, from so many fronts, the old world still grasping at everyone’s coat tails despite the modern world beckoning from beyond. You were never really in control of your own life if you were Irish, much less so if you were a woman.
‘The shot echoed around the yard and over the stones and bounced back at her from the walls, breaking the air, splintering the morning light. A cloud of crows lifted from the trees on the hill like so many black rags and spiralled away across the sky, calling back sadly to each other as they did, come away, come away.’
Jacqueline O’Mahony writes with such instinct; her prose is unflinching in its honesty, devastatingly beautiful and so atmospheric, I had goosebumps while reading. I adored this novel, so very much. I recommend it highly, but temper this with a caution as it’s not a happy novel. But often times, the greatest ones aren’t.
‘Every love story is a great love story in the beginning, and then the middle comes, and then, an end.’
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of A River in the Trees for review.
January 31, 2019
This tale in two timelines is more women's fiction than romance, but could have been better researched. In 2019 at the start, a woman buys a pack of ten cigarettes. I was wondering what country she is in, but she's in Ireland. Where packs of ten were made illegal in 2007.
I never took to the contemporary part but the historical time line is interesting; the Cork area in 1919 as independence and soon-to-be civil war are causing huge tensions. A comparatively well off farm family get involved when a rebel needs shelter. Here, I am not sure the date is accurate, as the Black and Tans were founded in 1919 but only got well established in numbers by 1920 and according to The History Learning Site they were sent to Ireland in March 1920. Local records would say exactly when they were sent to Cork. The modern half brings the traveller back to the farmhouse, which is now for sale.
Some readers will enjoy this more than I did, and it's always good to see fresh voices.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
I never took to the contemporary part but the historical time line is interesting; the Cork area in 1919 as independence and soon-to-be civil war are causing huge tensions. A comparatively well off farm family get involved when a rebel needs shelter. Here, I am not sure the date is accurate, as the Black and Tans were founded in 1919 but only got well established in numbers by 1920 and according to The History Learning Site they were sent to Ireland in March 1920. Local records would say exactly when they were sent to Cork. The modern half brings the traveller back to the farmhouse, which is now for sale.
Some readers will enjoy this more than I did, and it's always good to see fresh voices.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.
February 16, 2019
Just before the War of Independence in Ireland, in 1919, Hannah O’Donovan’s family are on the side of the rebels, a stance the consequences of which are far-reaching. A hundred years later, Ellen’s life is falling apart and when she hears that the old family property is up for sale, she flees back, determined to buy it. Narrated in alternating chapters from alternating points of view, the two women’s lives start to intersect in a dramatic and gripping story that engaged me completely. It’s an amazingly accomplished debut novel, and one which I enjoyed very much. Some basic knowledge of Irish history enhances the reading, but even without it’s still an absorbing tale told with insight and empathy, and I heartily recommend it.
November 18, 2019
A River in the Trees is a well written debut novel.
We get two stories told in here. Hannah in 1919 and Ellen in 2019, same family but a hundred years apart. These are two strong likeable characters.
As I’m Irish I was looking forward to reading this and I wasn’t disappointed. It has a great storyline and told in a lovely captivating way. I’ll be keeping my eye out on more stories from this author.
We get two stories told in here. Hannah in 1919 and Ellen in 2019, same family but a hundred years apart. These are two strong likeable characters.
As I’m Irish I was looking forward to reading this and I wasn’t disappointed. It has a great storyline and told in a lovely captivating way. I’ll be keeping my eye out on more stories from this author.
May 11, 2020
I bought this last year but it's only now while in lockdown that I've been able to read this wonderful novel full of history, love, family secrets and betrayal. A River in the Trees spans two time frames: 1919 and the Irish War of Independence and 2019, encompassing the stories of two women, Hannah and Ellen. It is the most sensitively written book and by far one of the best recent contemporary Irish novels. I highly recommend it.
March 30, 2020
Reviewed for Books and livres
Well, well, well... I wasn't impressed.
The historical part of the book was easy enough to read, but there was nothing original in it.
The contemporary part of it made me want to strangle each and every one of its protagonists !
Ellen has cause to not be feeling good about her life, but I couldn't even feel some empathy about a woman who has lost her baby, that's how bad it was. Ellen was whiny, she bullied everybody around her, her family was awful, the characters didn't communicate with each other, they didn't say what they were feeling/experiencing and then they got angry because the others didn't understand them and they shut them out ! For years !
Besides, Ellen wasn't such a nice person to start with : when she was younger, she was beautiful and didn't mind slapping people around in pubs and getting away with it because of her beauty, she was just selfish and completely silly. I hated her !
At the end of the story, both Hannah and Ellen began to start a new life, but honestly, Ellen buying her old family home with her husband's money while contemplating leaving him is a not so good start for a new life. I think the novel aimed at the kind of atmosphere you find in a Kate Morton book with both old story/new story, but Kate Morton's characters are a lot more interesting.
Well, well, well... I wasn't impressed.
The historical part of the book was easy enough to read, but there was nothing original in it.
The contemporary part of it made me want to strangle each and every one of its protagonists !
Ellen has cause to not be feeling good about her life, but I couldn't even feel some empathy about a woman who has lost her baby, that's how bad it was. Ellen was whiny, she bullied everybody around her, her family was awful, the characters didn't communicate with each other, they didn't say what they were feeling/experiencing and then they got angry because the others didn't understand them and they shut them out ! For years !
Besides, Ellen wasn't such a nice person to start with : when she was younger, she was beautiful and didn't mind slapping people around in pubs and getting away with it because of her beauty, she was just selfish and completely silly. I hated her !
At the end of the story, both Hannah and Ellen began to start a new life, but honestly, Ellen buying her old family home with her husband's money while contemplating leaving him is a not so good start for a new life. I think the novel aimed at the kind of atmosphere you find in a Kate Morton book with both old story/new story, but Kate Morton's characters are a lot more interesting.
December 29, 2018
Review to follow...
January 14, 2019
Two women. Two stories. One hundred years of secrets. Everything I love about dual time stories is found in A River in the Trees which looks at two very different women whose stories overlap and interweave in a story of family secrets and hidden tragedy.
1919, and in West Cork, Hannah is living a bleak existence on the family farm. It's a life of hardship which is made all the more complicated by the family's involvement in the Irish War of Independence. Hiding a group of rebel fighters in the attic at the farmhouse puts Hannah and her family in grave danger from the notorious Black and Tans who will stop at nothing to apprehend the rebels and prevent insurrection. Hannah is attracted to O'Riada, the fanatical leader of the rebels, a connection which will have repercussions for Hannah, and her family, for generations to come.
In 2019, Ellen is at a crossroads in her life. Unsatisfied by both her work and her relationship with her husband, Ellen returns to Ireland to discover more about her family history. What she finds when she starts to dig into the past is both poignant and shocking in equal measure.
Moving both forwards and backward quite seamlessly A River in the Trees is a beautifully written story about family secrets. It's about living in a time when families were divided not just by politics but by the way the harsh realities of life influenced everything about their world and their place in it. Moving forwards a hundred years and Ellen's story shows her to be in a very different world but yet, the parallels still remain of troubled family dynamics and of relationships which are fractured beyond repair.
I started to read A River in the Trees at the start of this new year and by the time I was just a few pages into the story, I knew that this book, my first read of the year, was rather special. I turned the pages eagerly wanting to know more, not just about Ellen in the here and now but also about Hannah, a true heroine, whose desperately sad story will stay with me for a long, long time.
1919, and in West Cork, Hannah is living a bleak existence on the family farm. It's a life of hardship which is made all the more complicated by the family's involvement in the Irish War of Independence. Hiding a group of rebel fighters in the attic at the farmhouse puts Hannah and her family in grave danger from the notorious Black and Tans who will stop at nothing to apprehend the rebels and prevent insurrection. Hannah is attracted to O'Riada, the fanatical leader of the rebels, a connection which will have repercussions for Hannah, and her family, for generations to come.
In 2019, Ellen is at a crossroads in her life. Unsatisfied by both her work and her relationship with her husband, Ellen returns to Ireland to discover more about her family history. What she finds when she starts to dig into the past is both poignant and shocking in equal measure.
Moving both forwards and backward quite seamlessly A River in the Trees is a beautifully written story about family secrets. It's about living in a time when families were divided not just by politics but by the way the harsh realities of life influenced everything about their world and their place in it. Moving forwards a hundred years and Ellen's story shows her to be in a very different world but yet, the parallels still remain of troubled family dynamics and of relationships which are fractured beyond repair.
I started to read A River in the Trees at the start of this new year and by the time I was just a few pages into the story, I knew that this book, my first read of the year, was rather special. I turned the pages eagerly wanting to know more, not just about Ellen in the here and now but also about Hannah, a true heroine, whose desperately sad story will stay with me for a long, long time.
January 18, 2019
The two strands interact as Ellen visits the house and speaks to locals, learning more about her family’s secrets. But even without that connection, these would be entertaining stories. The prose is lovely, elegant and yet seemingly effortless, and the two main characters, with their contrasting personalities, appealing on the page. Although her life has been restricted, Hannah is brave and determined; Ellen, with more apparent opportunity, is caught in a self-destructive spiral. Who wouldn’t be curious to discover what becomes of them?
Full review
Irish debuts looking back: A River in the Trees & When All Is Said https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post...
Full review
Irish debuts looking back: A River in the Trees & When All Is Said https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post...
April 14, 2025
Having read and been gripped by “sing wild bird sing” I immediately ordered another novel by Jacqueline .
This is another Irish tale set this time in 1910 teaching me a little about the struggle for freedom during this time with a linking story around a visiting family member from the 2010s.
Once again the very relatable characters with their everyday lives. thoughts, and environment are beautifully drawn.
This is another Irish tale set this time in 1910 teaching me a little about the struggle for freedom during this time with a linking story around a visiting family member from the 2010s.
Once again the very relatable characters with their everyday lives. thoughts, and environment are beautifully drawn.
September 30, 2022
A book set in two timelines, I much preferred the timeline of Hannah in 1920 than the present day timeline.
It was a book that I kept wanting to pick up
It was a book that I kept wanting to pick up
June 22, 2019
Raw and bleak. The writing was lovely, but I was drained after finishing. There were so many glowing reviews, though. I’m definitely in the minority. And it isn’t that I can’t handle sadness. Some of my favorites have made me weep. There were a few pages of this I was forced to skip as I couldn’t bear to read it. Rating is difficult. Maybe 3 stars, or 3 and a half.
December 29, 2021
This was one of those novels where two characters were telling their story in alternate chapters. Their lives were about 100 years apart and they were related. I enjoyed the history and the characters and the revelations. There was a lot of prose in this book which I enjoy in a novel. The author brought everything to life in my head with the description and I would be interested in any further books she might write as I believe this is her first.
December 6, 2018
Two women from the same family,but years apart.
To be honest,this felt like two completely seperate books.
One of them,set in 1919 was interesting. Some history thrown in about the fighting Irish,some soldiers,scandal.... nicely written.
The second part,set in present day,for me,didn't add much to the book.
I was glad to have those chapters over and be back to the farm.
To be honest,this felt like two completely seperate books.
One of them,set in 1919 was interesting. Some history thrown in about the fighting Irish,some soldiers,scandal.... nicely written.
The second part,set in present day,for me,didn't add much to the book.
I was glad to have those chapters over and be back to the farm.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 18, 2019
‘A River in the Trees’ is an incredible historical fiction novel by Jacqueline O’Mahony which really captured my heart and made me want to keep reading and reading and reading until I was done. It’s set in Ireland which I absolutely loved and it has made me want to read more stories that take place there.
This wonderful book takes you on a journey back and forth between Hannah, in 1919 and Ellen, in the present 2019. Both characters were developed so well and I fell in love with them instantly. I related a lot to Ellen in the present and felt her pain on a deep emotional level, and Hannah was just such a badass, strong woman and I loved seeing their stories unfold.
I’ve never read much historical fiction but this book has got me completely hooked now. It’s just such a great story that made me feel so many raw emotions and I absolutely loved it. The first chapter or two were a little slow but then the story completely takes off and unfolds tumultuously, taking the reader with it. A great read, especially if you’re a historical fiction fan. Although I would recommend this book to anyone!
This wonderful book takes you on a journey back and forth between Hannah, in 1919 and Ellen, in the present 2019. Both characters were developed so well and I fell in love with them instantly. I related a lot to Ellen in the present and felt her pain on a deep emotional level, and Hannah was just such a badass, strong woman and I loved seeing their stories unfold.
I’ve never read much historical fiction but this book has got me completely hooked now. It’s just such a great story that made me feel so many raw emotions and I absolutely loved it. The first chapter or two were a little slow but then the story completely takes off and unfolds tumultuously, taking the reader with it. A great read, especially if you’re a historical fiction fan. Although I would recommend this book to anyone!
January 11, 2019
'We can all see the shape of what is to come for us, she thought. We all know, somewhere inside ourselves, what will be.'
I have read this book as one might brave a strong wind: bundled up and ready for anything. My copy of A River in the Trees is well-worn, even after my short time with it, its edges have curled, and its pages wear the speckled marks and crumbs of lunches and dinners. It has been with me as I’ve moved through these early January days – and thanks to it, they have been well-read ones, for sure.
'So she tried to think about things from the end, backwards, from when they had finally pulled apart from each other.'
Ellen, our present-day protagonist, is on a frantic search for answers. She is a woman of many losses, each of them like a boat she has pushed aside, kept swimming passed. Refusing their life jackets. From family to friends – even lovers. People, she felt, she was no good to. She is a person who has grown used to cutting away the comfortable and the warm … scared of how those things can keep you still. A life jacket you cannot unzip.
The two protagonists in this book are related, and as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that these women are linked not only by blood, and perhaps something more. They are an echo of each other – one hundred years apart. Ellen will be lying in her hotel room, patting the empty space beside her and saying goodnight to her daughter’s ghost, and meanwhile, a hundred years prior, Hannah wonders about her childhood and how she believed she was a fairy child. A Siofra, replaced at birth. And perhaps that was why her mother was so cruel and so tired, all the time. For, she thinks, wouldn’t you be tired if your child were taken by fairies, and you spent your nights crying?
Echoes, throughout. Like how a person might trip on the same stretch of pavement that somebody else has fallen on, hours prior. Like the memory of it hangs there. This book is a time loop trying to break itself, and Ellen is the one holding the hammer.
'Everything in this country would make you heartsick … You were only able for it, really, if your heart had already been broken. So she was all right, then … She was broken enough, now, finally, to be able to come home.'
Ellen travels to her family’s farm – home, once, to Hannah. It is abandoned and in need of reclaiming, and it is she who seeks to do so. To take back her family’s history, and to make new ground upon it.
But Ellen is trapped. Every attempt at making a better life, or finding something more, is exhausted before it is even fully formed. And this house she seeks to buy almost represents her life – in a bricked from. The perfect metaphor, standing in its lonely valley.
'They had all let her go, easily, and after a while that had become the thing that mattered above the rest of it. None of them had looked for her. They had let her fade away.'
Ellen feels connected to Hannah. Two forgotten women. Abandoned by their families and erased from the stories they tell. It becomes her mission, and ours as the reader alongside her, to find out about the lost memory of this house and its occupants. As if by lifting the sheet that was cast over Hannah, all those years ago, she will, in turn, reveal a lost part of herself.
The sections set in 1919 have their beauty. They have their wind through grasses and horse’s manes … but there is more greyness there. A hard life lived by the O’Donovan family. The kind that you close your eyes to. And these segments of the story contrast Ellen’s so well. Both have their brutality – the 1919 kind, and the 2019 kind.
'The pain was moving away from her like the sea running out from the shore. I am fading away, she thought. Each time the pain goes it takes some of me with it and I am less and less each time. It will leave nothing of me.'
In her book, and in Ellen’s sections especially, O’Mahony has perfectly captured the true … awkwardness of certain human exchanges. It is partly why I felt so compelled by Ellen and her observations of the people around her. They were so captivating and, at times, deeply relatable. In some novels, dialogue is too clean, or has an air about it of being dialogue, not true speech … but the characters in this book are some of the truest talkers. All naked words and fumbling. There are times, too, when her writing will play with your expectations as a reader, and your ear for cliché especially. I often felt surprised and refreshed while reading. And in good hands, most of all – knowing ones.
One of my favourite scenes demonstrated all of this beautifully – and that was the lunch scene, between Ellen, her mother, and Simon. I thought the whole thing was very well executed – and endlessly visual. The way Ellen knows these two so well, and she effortlessly calls out each happening as if it were a stage play, unfolding beneath her own lights. When her mother will sniff, or a mind game Simon might play. She sips her wine, almost bored by them. Expectant.
I greatly enjoyed my time with this book. It really did feel like a storm, in the best ay. The story dips in and out of darkness. It finds and examines every emotion possible. It made me laugh and it made me turn away. It is a book for battened down hatches and steady eyes.
'—and it was almost a gift, she suspected, to be able to discard the past so easily, as if she were throwing off an old coat.'
I have read this book as one might brave a strong wind: bundled up and ready for anything. My copy of A River in the Trees is well-worn, even after my short time with it, its edges have curled, and its pages wear the speckled marks and crumbs of lunches and dinners. It has been with me as I’ve moved through these early January days – and thanks to it, they have been well-read ones, for sure.
'So she tried to think about things from the end, backwards, from when they had finally pulled apart from each other.'
Ellen, our present-day protagonist, is on a frantic search for answers. She is a woman of many losses, each of them like a boat she has pushed aside, kept swimming passed. Refusing their life jackets. From family to friends – even lovers. People, she felt, she was no good to. She is a person who has grown used to cutting away the comfortable and the warm … scared of how those things can keep you still. A life jacket you cannot unzip.
The two protagonists in this book are related, and as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that these women are linked not only by blood, and perhaps something more. They are an echo of each other – one hundred years apart. Ellen will be lying in her hotel room, patting the empty space beside her and saying goodnight to her daughter’s ghost, and meanwhile, a hundred years prior, Hannah wonders about her childhood and how she believed she was a fairy child. A Siofra, replaced at birth. And perhaps that was why her mother was so cruel and so tired, all the time. For, she thinks, wouldn’t you be tired if your child were taken by fairies, and you spent your nights crying?
Echoes, throughout. Like how a person might trip on the same stretch of pavement that somebody else has fallen on, hours prior. Like the memory of it hangs there. This book is a time loop trying to break itself, and Ellen is the one holding the hammer.
'Everything in this country would make you heartsick … You were only able for it, really, if your heart had already been broken. So she was all right, then … She was broken enough, now, finally, to be able to come home.'
Ellen travels to her family’s farm – home, once, to Hannah. It is abandoned and in need of reclaiming, and it is she who seeks to do so. To take back her family’s history, and to make new ground upon it.
But Ellen is trapped. Every attempt at making a better life, or finding something more, is exhausted before it is even fully formed. And this house she seeks to buy almost represents her life – in a bricked from. The perfect metaphor, standing in its lonely valley.
'They had all let her go, easily, and after a while that had become the thing that mattered above the rest of it. None of them had looked for her. They had let her fade away.'
Ellen feels connected to Hannah. Two forgotten women. Abandoned by their families and erased from the stories they tell. It becomes her mission, and ours as the reader alongside her, to find out about the lost memory of this house and its occupants. As if by lifting the sheet that was cast over Hannah, all those years ago, she will, in turn, reveal a lost part of herself.
The sections set in 1919 have their beauty. They have their wind through grasses and horse’s manes … but there is more greyness there. A hard life lived by the O’Donovan family. The kind that you close your eyes to. And these segments of the story contrast Ellen’s so well. Both have their brutality – the 1919 kind, and the 2019 kind.
'The pain was moving away from her like the sea running out from the shore. I am fading away, she thought. Each time the pain goes it takes some of me with it and I am less and less each time. It will leave nothing of me.'
In her book, and in Ellen’s sections especially, O’Mahony has perfectly captured the true … awkwardness of certain human exchanges. It is partly why I felt so compelled by Ellen and her observations of the people around her. They were so captivating and, at times, deeply relatable. In some novels, dialogue is too clean, or has an air about it of being dialogue, not true speech … but the characters in this book are some of the truest talkers. All naked words and fumbling. There are times, too, when her writing will play with your expectations as a reader, and your ear for cliché especially. I often felt surprised and refreshed while reading. And in good hands, most of all – knowing ones.
One of my favourite scenes demonstrated all of this beautifully – and that was the lunch scene, between Ellen, her mother, and Simon. I thought the whole thing was very well executed – and endlessly visual. The way Ellen knows these two so well, and she effortlessly calls out each happening as if it were a stage play, unfolding beneath her own lights. When her mother will sniff, or a mind game Simon might play. She sips her wine, almost bored by them. Expectant.
I greatly enjoyed my time with this book. It really did feel like a storm, in the best ay. The story dips in and out of darkness. It finds and examines every emotion possible. It made me laugh and it made me turn away. It is a book for battened down hatches and steady eyes.
'—and it was almost a gift, she suspected, to be able to discard the past so easily, as if she were throwing off an old coat.'
January 11, 2019
💫 R E V I E W 💫
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This novel is told in a dual timeline, following two women in Ireland 100 years apart. In 1919 Hannah's peaceful family life is shattered when the War of Independence breaks out. At a huge cost, her family hides rebel soldiers on their West Cork farm from the British army, and life will forever be changed after she and the rebel leader act on their instant attraction. In 2019, heartbroken Ellen decides to return home to Ireland, having lost a baby. She visits the old farmhouse that used to belong to her family, and delves into the past of her mysterious ancestor, Hannah, in order to understand who she is herself.
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I particularly enjoyed the story of Hannah, which is a beautifully nostalgic and rich portrayal of rural Ireland at the beginning of the War of Independence. Hannah is very relatable as a spirited and independent woman, whose agonising decisions will have long-lasting repercussions. The novel could have worked equally well just focusing on the historical element of Hannah's story, but I felt that Ellen's narrative was also very interesting. I've read negative comments questioning her character's likeability, but I actually think it was refreshing to read fiction that compassionately highlights stigma issues such as baby loss, miscarriage and depression and their impact.
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I think the novel would have benefited from a foreword or afterword explaining the relevant Irish history, to give a bit of cultural and political context. I'm Irish myself, and sometimes the tragic and bloody history of this Island can be complex even for us to fully understand (and for me very tricky to explain)- I wonder if any other reviewers would have welcomed this too? For me the ending was a little abrupt, and I thought Ellen’s trajectory a bit predictable. However, this was overall an enjoyable and worthwhile read - if you like historical fiction and strong female characters then this may very well be for you!
🌟🌟🌟.5/5
Thank you @anabooks and @quercusbooks for inviting me on the #booktour. This is available to buy now!
.
.
This novel is told in a dual timeline, following two women in Ireland 100 years apart. In 1919 Hannah's peaceful family life is shattered when the War of Independence breaks out. At a huge cost, her family hides rebel soldiers on their West Cork farm from the British army, and life will forever be changed after she and the rebel leader act on their instant attraction. In 2019, heartbroken Ellen decides to return home to Ireland, having lost a baby. She visits the old farmhouse that used to belong to her family, and delves into the past of her mysterious ancestor, Hannah, in order to understand who she is herself.
.
I particularly enjoyed the story of Hannah, which is a beautifully nostalgic and rich portrayal of rural Ireland at the beginning of the War of Independence. Hannah is very relatable as a spirited and independent woman, whose agonising decisions will have long-lasting repercussions. The novel could have worked equally well just focusing on the historical element of Hannah's story, but I felt that Ellen's narrative was also very interesting. I've read negative comments questioning her character's likeability, but I actually think it was refreshing to read fiction that compassionately highlights stigma issues such as baby loss, miscarriage and depression and their impact.
.
I think the novel would have benefited from a foreword or afterword explaining the relevant Irish history, to give a bit of cultural and political context. I'm Irish myself, and sometimes the tragic and bloody history of this Island can be complex even for us to fully understand (and for me very tricky to explain)- I wonder if any other reviewers would have welcomed this too? For me the ending was a little abrupt, and I thought Ellen’s trajectory a bit predictable. However, this was overall an enjoyable and worthwhile read - if you like historical fiction and strong female characters then this may very well be for you!
🌟🌟🌟.5/5
Thank you @anabooks and @quercusbooks for inviting me on the #booktour. This is available to buy now!
.
September 22, 2019
Blurb from web:
1919: ireland is about to be torn apart by the War of Independence.
Hannah O'Donovan helps her father hide rebel soldiers in the attic, putting her family in great danger from the British soldiers who roam the countryside. An immediate connection between Hannah and O'Riada, the leader of this hidden band of rebels, will change her life and that of her family forever . . .
2019
Ellen is at a crossroads: her marriage is in trouble, her career is over and she's grieving the loss of a baby. After years in London, she decides to come home to Ireland to face the things she's tried so hard to escape. Reaching into the past, she feels a connection to her ancestor, the mysterious Hannah O'Donovan. But why won't anyone in her family talk about Hannah? And how can this journey help Ellen put her life back together?
My review: find it hard to believe this is O’Mahonys first novel. I found her writing style to be exquisite and perfect. Hard to put down.
I enjoyed both timelines - the modern Ellen’s story was dismal but I loved her character and found the writing to be quite witty despite all that went on in Ellen’s life.
The highlight would be the 1919 timeline. I very much enjoyed Hannah’s strength in character and her steely resolve in such hard times.
No happy endings here - I wonder what actually happened to Hannah when she sailed to America leaving her child behind. Perhaps the author has left Hannah’s story subject to the reader’s interpretation - or will there be a follow up?
Very keen to read further works by O’Mahony!
1919: ireland is about to be torn apart by the War of Independence.
Hannah O'Donovan helps her father hide rebel soldiers in the attic, putting her family in great danger from the British soldiers who roam the countryside. An immediate connection between Hannah and O'Riada, the leader of this hidden band of rebels, will change her life and that of her family forever . . .
2019
Ellen is at a crossroads: her marriage is in trouble, her career is over and she's grieving the loss of a baby. After years in London, she decides to come home to Ireland to face the things she's tried so hard to escape. Reaching into the past, she feels a connection to her ancestor, the mysterious Hannah O'Donovan. But why won't anyone in her family talk about Hannah? And how can this journey help Ellen put her life back together?
My review: find it hard to believe this is O’Mahonys first novel. I found her writing style to be exquisite and perfect. Hard to put down.
I enjoyed both timelines - the modern Ellen’s story was dismal but I loved her character and found the writing to be quite witty despite all that went on in Ellen’s life.
The highlight would be the 1919 timeline. I very much enjoyed Hannah’s strength in character and her steely resolve in such hard times.
No happy endings here - I wonder what actually happened to Hannah when she sailed to America leaving her child behind. Perhaps the author has left Hannah’s story subject to the reader’s interpretation - or will there be a follow up?
Very keen to read further works by O’Mahony!
July 28, 2019
The River in the Trees by Jacqueline O’Mahony really is a special read; think Cecelia Ahern but grittier and subtle in how it weaves Ellen and Hannah’s stories together.
O’Mahony’s use of dual narrative is a triumph as it showcases the parallels which exist between lives even one hundred years apart. It allows The River in the Trees to be steeped in both history and the human experience of love, loss and conflict.
The story is appropriately paced, ensuring the reader’s own life swiftly becomes entwined with the characters’ lives, it is rich and it is heartbreaking. The final few chapters swell with emotion and provide a twist which is wonderfully satisfying.
I think, however, what I loved the most about O’Mahony’s novel is how it ends. She has achieved something few writers manage, which is to close the novel in way which resolves one chapter but could allow for the next to be written. I would happily read more about the next steps of both Hannah and Ellen; but if this novel is it, that is perfectly fine too.
Thus, The River in the Trees, a heartrending and beautifully composed story set in Ireland from 1919 to 2019, will undoubtedly stand the test of time.
O’Mahony’s use of dual narrative is a triumph as it showcases the parallels which exist between lives even one hundred years apart. It allows The River in the Trees to be steeped in both history and the human experience of love, loss and conflict.
The story is appropriately paced, ensuring the reader’s own life swiftly becomes entwined with the characters’ lives, it is rich and it is heartbreaking. The final few chapters swell with emotion and provide a twist which is wonderfully satisfying.
I think, however, what I loved the most about O’Mahony’s novel is how it ends. She has achieved something few writers manage, which is to close the novel in way which resolves one chapter but could allow for the next to be written. I would happily read more about the next steps of both Hannah and Ellen; but if this novel is it, that is perfectly fine too.
Thus, The River in the Trees, a heartrending and beautifully composed story set in Ireland from 1919 to 2019, will undoubtedly stand the test of time.
May 1, 2022
A melancholy story of two women born 100 years apart. What links them is their birth place in Ireland & the frustrations & heartaches they share in a wars they are fighting within themselves as well as in their own times.
In 1919, Hannah O’Donovan’s family hide rebels in the attic placing the family in grave danger against the British soldiers. Hannah’s life changes forever when she is attracted to one of the rebels.
In 2019 Ellen is at the crossroads of her marriage. Her career is over, she has just buried her baby & she comes home to Ireland trying to escape the war raging in her heart & mind.
How will these women be linked & will the past resolve Ellen’s turmoil.
Each alternate chapter is written about each woman. At times this interrupted your flow of the narrative.
Whilst heart rendering, O’Mahony, focus on Ireland’s history & individual struggles for truth & resolution left me feeling sad.
Definitely not a feel good story but one that paints a harsh world in harsh realities.
In 1919, Hannah O’Donovan’s family hide rebels in the attic placing the family in grave danger against the British soldiers. Hannah’s life changes forever when she is attracted to one of the rebels.
In 2019 Ellen is at the crossroads of her marriage. Her career is over, she has just buried her baby & she comes home to Ireland trying to escape the war raging in her heart & mind.
How will these women be linked & will the past resolve Ellen’s turmoil.
Each alternate chapter is written about each woman. At times this interrupted your flow of the narrative.
Whilst heart rendering, O’Mahony, focus on Ireland’s history & individual struggles for truth & resolution left me feeling sad.
Definitely not a feel good story but one that paints a harsh world in harsh realities.
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