Blessed Are the Cheesemakers

This book is witty, quick and charming. It's no great intellectual piece, which is no insult. It is of another genera, containing lots of personality quirks and riddled with soap opera-like surprises. I love this book, and I love cheese!

I have enjoyed the book and it's characters so much. In fact I am down to just a few pages...maybe 20 or so and I am only allowing myself to read one or two until one of her other books arrives in the mail. This writer really knows how to create characters that make you smile the whole time you are reading about them. I really care about the people and will always wonder how they are doing. That is how real they seem to me.

This novel is a must for anybody who loves cheese, life, people, or the word "fecking". The characters, somewhat aloof at first (save Corrie and Fee, they're grandfathers to the bone) quickly wrap you around their stories. Kit, a New Yorker who gets kicked out of the rat race, draws you into the drama concerning his ex-wife and the child they lost. Abbey makes the move from a "primitive" island in the south pacific back to Ireland to search out the mystery of why her mother hates her grandfather. Their stories, and that of the half dozen singing pregasaurs, pull you into this book so far you can smell the cheese as it transforms from milk to curd, and you can feel the cool air as it seeps from the curing caves.

This book is a delightful tale of those who need emotional and physcial healing, and the wonderful dairy farm and its inhabitants (some of whom are quite kooky) who provide it. The characters in this book are wonderfully written. The descriptions of the cheeses make one's mouth water. At times during this book I found myself smiling, laughing, and, yes, even crying (sobbing to be honest). It is a fantastic story, very well written, and I highly, highly recommend it. Add another five stars if you love cheese!

In County Cork, Ireland, Joseph "Corrie" Corrigan and Joseph "Fee" Feehan produce the internationally famous Coolarney Blue cheese. However as the two Josephs age, they worry about their company's future. So they decide to embark on successor planning. Corrie has not seen his granddaughter Abbey in almost a quarter of a century. Currently, she feels abandoned by her womanizing preacher of a spouse spouting the word to natives on a Pacific Island. She knows she needs a change of scenery from her locale and more from her ripping her skin for some alleged sin husband.On an Atlantic island named Manhattan, alcoholic Kit Stephens has lost his way since his wife and child died. Recently he also loses his stockbroker position. He needs a change of scenery to start over. Fate enters the mix and soon Abbey and Kit meet at the Coolarney cheese factory.This cheesy romance is amusing due mostly to the geezers, the cows, and the cats serving as interesting secondary characters. Abbey and Kit seems like nice people, but both sing the blues until they meet each other and see in the other a second chance. Throw in the magic of Eire leading to the audience singing along to the Sound of Music.Harriet Klausner