Miserere
During the Potato Famine, an Irish farmer sells his daughters Orla and Caitriona N. Faolain, to an English landowner to serve as indentured servants on his Virginia Plantation.
The story opens with Elizabeth Mitchell, her 10-year-old daughter Connemara (Conn), and younger son Will arriving in the small West Virginia community of her youth after having been informed that her Marine pilot husband was missing in action. Her deceased Nana’s homestead is liveable but needs repairs. She hires Abraham Lincoln Greene, now local general repairman, but former teacher in the north until a racist issue caused his departure. His work is excellent, but his ability to relate with children and laid-back sage-like activity are even more noteworthy, resulting in a true friendship that evokes gossip and eventual anti-racial reaction.
Simultaneously, Conn proves to be clairvoyant and communicates with Caitriona’s ghost, learns of a curse on the family and eventually is the only possible designate to resolve a family curse extending from the pre-Civil War period.
The author’s format of intermingling historical characters with those of the present is well done; manipulation of the main and sub-plots excellent and supportive characters are believable. Possible social issue for some readers.
