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It’s no blarney that the Irish are born storytellers. From Edwin O’Connor (The Last Hurrah) to Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes), Irish authors can make you laugh out loud one page and have you tear-up on the next. Following in their footsteps, Mary Pat Kelly walks the walk and talks the talk. Listen, you can almost hear the brogue in her new novel, Galway Bay.

While backpacking her way through Europe thirty years ago, Mary Pat uncovered the story of her forebears and makes it her mission to describe the Irish experience and its huge impact on the population of the United States. She is an award winning documentary maker and a former nun. Her characters will grab you by the heartstrings with their grit, determination, humor, and resilience.

Steeped in myth, history, drama, romance, and legend, Kelly weaves a family saga through six generations. As her yarn unravels, we empathize and can hardly wait to for the next chapter. Written as historical fiction, Kelly bases her yarn loosely on her great-great-grandmother, Honora Kelly. If you have ever wondered what it would have been like to live through a famine, it’s all here in heart-wrenching detail.

Pour a cup of tea and curl up with this glorious panoramic novel that will sweep from Galway Bay clear across to Chicago. And by the way, you don’t have to be Irish to fall for this tale.

— Rita

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  • The story of one Irish family’s epic journey, capturing the tragedy and triumph of the Irish-American experience

  • Author: Mary Pat Kelly, author and director of award-winning documentaries on Irish subjects and the dramatic feature, Proud

  • 576 pages
  • Hardcover
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, February 9, 2009

  • Including book group discussion questions

  • “Against landscapes beautiful and bleak, [Mary Pat Kelly] brings her characters to unforgettable life. As they say in Ireland, ‘Take your ease with this book.’ You’ll need time for laughter and tears and pure magic.” — Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes
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