I loved every minute of this book. The Law of Dreams by Peter
Behrens had me transported instantly to Ireland. Set at the time
of the potato famine in the mid-nineteenth century the book is
beautifully evocative. My
daughter and I spent some time in that
part of Ireland and visited the heartbreaking Potato Famine Museum in Skibbereen, but
we were most surprised travelling around the country side to see that there
were still small stone dwellings dotting the hills, abandoned and
unchanged
for the past 160 years. The history of the place is everywhere
and the unthinkable poverty and squalor in which these people lived is
still evident. The novel follows the character of Fergus as he is
buffeted through this despairing time like so much flotsam. He is
a young man with nothing left to lose and so is willing to risk his
life just to be gone from the place. Poverty, starvation,
illness, and betrayal are his lot. There is a lot of page turning
plot to this novel, but it's really the characters that make it come
alive. Even the minor characters stand out in your memory. A really wonderful book. Buy at Amazon
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