From My Bookshelf: The Tour

A group of American tourists are thrown together on a bus tour.  They are a diverse bunch – in age, experience, finance and personalities.   Their tour guide, Conor, is engaging and humourous – and an expert historian.  He has been doing this job a long time.

 

I loved the glimpses of Ireland I got from this book – that corned beef and cabbage is NOT their food of choice, that you have NOT drunk Guinness until you drink it in Ireland, that many Irish did NOT resent the British occupation, how the IRA treated the Irish citizens and the evolution of the Black and Tans and the Auxies.  I now know more about Irish castles, farms, sheep dogs, drinking tea anytime of the day, the brilliant green landscapes, old family homesteads and what is truly important to the Irish.

 

So how do a college professor, a chronic gold digger, a grieving widow, a goth teen, a Wall Street banker and others navigate the close quarters of a shared bus, the same hotel and a tour guide with his own worries?

 

This is a good little read.  It is a great premise for a story, the characters are well defined and I learned a lot about Ireland.  However, it was very predictable and there was not a lot of tension or suspense.  Good reading for a snowy weekend.

 

This is the first of the Conor O’Shea series, but I am not likely to read the second book.