So Much Owed- Jean Grainger ~ 5 Stars ~ Breathtaking!

A spellbinding story about WWII in Ireland and everyone who featured in it. Jean Grainger is a very fine historian who weaves the facts of the Irish Free State, North Ireland and it's alliances into very intriguing stories. As a descendant of Irish Free State folks, most who came to the US prior to the Anglo Irish Treaty, I still am enthralled. After all, my great grand aunts uncles and cousins lived in Cork City, Mitchelstown Cork and surrounding Tipperary and Limerick, many in 1921.

This particular story, spanning a generation, pulled South and Northern Irish as well as British, into European wars with Germany. The twins James and Juliet, in their contrasting relationship with the mother who abandoned them, had incredibly different paths through this conflict. Their father, who had fought in the earlier war in France, tried to stay neutral, as did others. He and the Cork community were their touchstones and eventually pulled them back home.

I could not put this one down, as is often the case with Jean Graingers novels. Remarkably complex, it is a must read!