Shannon

Frank Delaney has written one of those rare books that you will remember reading for the rest of your life. If you love Ireland, this book will make you feel like you walked the length of the River Shannon with a lovely broken man, meeting a rich variety of Irish people, all the way to a most satisfying ending. Highly reccomended.

This is truly a remarkable story, where the characters not only come alive, they are living and breathing! I bought the audio version since I travel about 4 hours twice a week and can honestly say, I looked forward to my journey this week to hear 8 of the cd's. Robert Shannon is a truly extraordinary man who survives PTSD after the First WW. His travels and experiences in walking through Ireland give the listener/reader a sense of walking along with Robert! Mr.Delaney enhances this experience by reading the audio version himself and that makes the story seem richer and more fully imaginable. I was worried I would wake up with an Irish accent by the second day!!! Many thanks for a marvelous book and a grand characterization of the wonderful people of Ireland!

Delaney fans will delight in the audiobook version of Shannon since the author himself narrates. Delaney does a superb job and his intimacy with the words adds an extra dimension to this gripping, touching, historical novel. I've read his other works, and it was a real treat to hear the author's own voice reading Shannon. Delaney provides touching insights into the ravages of war on a soldier's psyche. Shannon finds humor and poignancy within difficult topics. Don't miss this gripping work of historical fiction.

Shannon is another great novel from Frank Delaney, with all the good qualities you'd expect: it's quiet, dark, funny, thoughtful, violent, intelligent, literate, complex, and very elegant. It's a story about an American in Ireland, and the Irish in America, and the fragile survivor of one war thrust directly into another; and, of course, it's about a river in Ireland. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of this book, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Delaney is great at weaving multiple stories together into a single whole; he takes the story of his hero, Robert Shannon, and threads it through the lives of the villains and other characters of the tale - a cast of bishops, murderers, soldiers, and extraordinary ordinary people. I was unexpectedly caught up in the action: the book begins as a sort of spiritual pilgrimage, and evolves into a completely gripping and suspenseful drama. Definitely check this out if you're interested in Ireland, Irish history, Irish folklore, WWI French battlefields, post-traumatic stress disorder, genealogy, scandals in the Catholic church, damaged heroes, and really good novels in general.