Irish Country #10
An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea
Patrick Taylor, John Keating (narrator)
Pairs present day with Fingal's training in anaesthetics during the Blitz while he is seeking marriage to his first wife.
The story combines humour with pathos.
The Little Mermaid
Hans Christian Andersen
The story is nearing 200 years old. Disney incurred no costs in using it for their animated special.
A fairy princess with a tail falls in love with a human prince. They'd have to be handsome. Not sure how the in-laws are going to react.
How Disney gave it an HEA I cannot say but the original is a tragedy.
Irish Country #9.5
The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories
Patrick Taylor, John Keating (Narrator)
A series of vignettes most of them included in books we've already read at least at first originally published in newspapers.
The author interacts with his fictional character.
Fingal's dog Arthur Guinness and his white cat Lady Macbeth both figure.
It occurs to me to ask how anyone could consume so much alcohol and not suffer liver damage.
Smoking is bad for your health, especially when you attempt to light your briar with gunpowder.
Dawn of the Red Tomorrow: The Timeline and Lore of Mars After the Silence
Joseph Cruz
This is a rather depressing tale. Having escaped war-ravaged earth the settlers on Mars bring their martial tendencies with them and the book becomes a catalogue of their wars and the increasingly sophisticated technology they use to fight them.
Irish Country #9
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War: An Irish Country Novel
Patrick Taylor, John Keating (Narator)
For this outing we jump back even further to Fingal's service as a medical lieutenant on board a battleship with a crew of 1200.
The book jumps back from the present to life on board the battleship and sees Fingal operating in a mass casualty theatre. Add having the deck beneath your feet roll and heave as you work. Picking through a man's intestines as if searching for leaks in a hose sounds awkward. And to a doctor a man in need is neither friend nor foe, just a patient in need whether he cries for mother or mutti.
We get a thorough description of child birth matched with an amputation onboard ship and three burials at sea.
Deefur
Deefur and the Great Mistletoe Incident
R.J. Scott
D for Dog, as Mark explained it in book one. So a little girl and a dog who weighs almost as much as its owner. In fact as a letter carrier I met a 4 something fellow out walking a St Bernard who out-weighed him by a considerable margin. If book one was kitch this outing multiplies it times three.
Jason, the gay male nannie becomes much more than employee to Cameron as he wangles Deefur, cares for Emma, cooks their meals and organizes their home. And since this is a romance they have an HEA.
Deefur
Deefur Dog
R.J. Scott
The great lummox that rules Cameron's world was Mark's dog and was named by him. Mark died and with him any discipline the Great Dane might have known. Finding a nannie for their daughter Emma involves getting Deefur's approval. Took a trip to an animal rescue centre to find Jason, a 6 5 giant of a lad who Deefur adored at first sight.
Did I say this is an M+M novel. You can figure the rest out for yourselves.
Take Me with You
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Some books just speak to one's soul. First off this book includes a tour of National Parks I have also visited.
And then there's the heart tug. A single father, the mother does not enter the picture, is faced with jail time and confronts the danger of his two sons entering the child welfare system while he's incarcerated if he can't find an alternate solution. August is headed out for a summer in his motor home with his son's ashes and his little dog when his engine breaks down. He and his mechanic strike a deal that sees the two boys taken into the care of a stranger while they cross multiple state borders. August is a high school teacher so he has some skills and raised a nineteen year old again as a single father. The miracle here is the fact that the trio bond and even more remarkable in this age we live in that the boys respond in gratitude as August ages.
The themes explored here include childhood trauma, (Henry stops talking), Alcoholism, Raison D'Etre, respect, love, Woody--the Dog.
My fourth read through.
