This week has flown by in a blur over here at my house. It is hunting season, and my husband and youngest daughter have spent five days in the mountains searching for her first deer. Meanwhile, my older daughter and I have been living our best life – staying up too late reading and watching trash reality TV, eating what she calls “girl dinner," and talking about Taylor Swift pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I can't say that I've hated it, but it will be nice to have the hunters home again soon to instill a little routine into our lives.
This week's book is a moving family drama, "The Connellys of County Down” by Tracey Lange. Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving eighteen months on a drug charge, and she knows rebuilding her life at thirty won’t be easy. She returns home to live with her siblings, who are both struggling with problems of their own. Her brother, Eddie, is a single dad struggling with the ongoing effects of a traumatic brain injury. Her sister, Geraldine, seems to have it the most together, but soon it is revealed that it is all a façade, and her life is full of secrets. Tara needs to find a way to rebuild her own life for herself and her family. As if to complicate things even further, the cop who put her in prison keeps showing up unannounced, leaving Tara to wonder what he wants from her now. The Connellys all have secrets, and as those secrets come to light, their whole world begins to unravel, forcing the family to come clean or lose each other forever.
The Connellys are a mess, but their loyalty to each other was palpable throughout this book and never wavered, even when it seemed toxic. Secrets and lies are revealed throughout, so it has many layers for readers to peel back as they get deeper into the story. This story is about starting over and how trauma is sometimes a fragile tie between siblings.
Looks like the hunters are probably headed back empty-handed, so I guess I should get my life together and prepare to come back to reality myself. I hope you enjoy a book this week, whether it is “The Connellys of County Down” or something else – and I hope you join me over on Instagram @allison.the.reader where I am reading and rambling about books and life as always.
Allison Diegel is the Executive Chaos Coordinator at the Diegel Home for Wayward Girls and Their Many Pets here in her hometown of Fallon. She has been reading since before she could talk, and now she likes doing lots of both.
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