What do readers think of The Disenchanted Widow by Christina McKenna? Write your own review.

A wonderful book full of twists and turns that touch almost every topic imaginable; good and evil, young and old, religion, mystery, food, hope and dreams all leading up to a delightful ending.

In the summer of 1981 a young widow is forced to flee Belfast with her son to start a new life. She finds herself in a small rural community with a mixture of interesting individuals, which she will have to interact with regardless of how she feels about them. The reader comes to know these characters as their stories are also unfolding as we read. The stories of these other characters become involved with her story, some of them being dangerous. The turbulence taking place in Belfast that summer reaches the small community. I enjoyed this book very much. The characters were unique. Her journey's twists and turns made for suspenseful reading.

The first couple of pages took some getting used to, it is written in a rather frenetic fashion that sort of left me breathless at times, and I did not think I was going to like it. But for this book, once I got a little further into it, in this time period of early 1980s Belfast, Ireland, with all its political uncertainty varied with the outlying country settings of arcane silliness, that frantic feeling that one must gulp down the words as quickly as possible method of getting the plot lines out and jumping seemed an appropriate fit. Indeed, I read this book quickly in just 3 days.

By the end I was rather sad to leave the trials and tribulations of the quasi-heroine of this story.

Bessie Lawless, recently widowed and her son, Herkie leave Belfast quickly to escape an IRA goon known as The Dentist. Bessie's late husband, an abusive alcoholic was mixed up with the IRA and stole money from The Dentist. On her way to her sister's house, unexpected car troubles land her in the village of Tailorstown. The local mechanic rents her his aunt's house and she gets a job cooking for the local priest. She becomes involved with some of the locals, including Lorcan Strong who also is trying to avoid The Dentist. The ending was clever and unexpected. My only criticism is the author in my opinion overused the local dialect a wee bit.

It's Ireland in the midst of the troubles. Bessie's husband is dead and the IRA is after her. She and her young son run off to hide and end up in a small village..interested? The story is a mixture of hope and fear and I read it in 2 days because I had to find out how it ended.

From the moment I first met Bessie in The Disenchanted Widow, I was cheering for her! In fact, I couldn't put the book down until I found out if she could and would make a new life for herself and her son, little Herkie after she left Belfast. The author created several memorable characters among the Tailorstown locals, and their behavior even had me laughing out loud at times. I highly recommend this book with its optimistic tone suggesting that the future will be better than the past when you have faith in your dreams and the courage to overcome many harsh obstacles along the way.

This author puts the readers back in the early 1980's during Northern Ireland struggles between the IRA and Protestant British rule. We navigate this time frame with a cast of incredibly quirky and interesting characters who are doing their best to avoid being caught up in the violence. Bessie and her young son, Herkie are just trying to lay low and scrape together some money to get to "Amerikay". Lorcan is using his skill as an artist to avoid being killed by the IRA. Father Cassidy a handsome priest, Rose McFadden a nosy and talkative neighbor and Gusty Grant a mechanic and peeping tom round out the major characters we meet.
At the beginning of the novel I had the mistaken impression that the story would be predictable and the story arc very straightforward. Also, Bessie 's character is pretty rough around the edges and I didn't think I could really "get into her". However, the more I read I found the complexity of each character grew as the author filled in a lot of details. Also the plot took a lot of unpredictable twists. I totally enjoyed this novel and I was really rooting for Bessie by the end of the novel.

This book is outside the norm of what I read. I had a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the book with the dialog, but I did get it and enjoyed the book. I have been surprised that the books I wouldn't normally read are becoming my favorites! Give it a chance if you are on the fence!!