Kilpara
Patricia Hopper swings us from America to Ireland with a comfortable, confident pen in Kilpara, the story of the O’Donovans and their connection with their ancestral Irish home.
Ellis, who carries with him a whiff of the prodigal son, returns home at the request of his dying mother. As the only child of the three without wife or children, he is enlisted to bring Mother back to Ireland to be in the care of a family aunt. On the return trip to Ireland, Ellis brings back a racehorse, and this steed becomes instrumental in a scheme to recapture the ancestral home from the Englishman who occupies it. But it is Ellis’ heart that is captured instead.
The importance of place and family are evident in the writing, and these become central themes as the book unfolds. A quick and enjoyable read, but the ending feels as if it came too soon. The assistance of a professional editor at the technical stage of writing would be a good investment for this talented author for any future novels as the narrative had built to a nice rhythm, but the final two chapters suddenly speed the reader downhill. There are also a few loose threads that could be sewn together (the incident that occurs while Ellis returned to Baltimore serves to flesh out the character, but seems out of place in the story as a whole). None of this detract from the charm of the story however, and as a first novel it is well crafted, solidly researched, and lovingly written.
