Rainsongs

Hubbard’s affecting but lightly plotted third novel (after Girl in White) takes readers on a brief, refreshing sojourn in Ireland’s County Kerry. Martha Cassidy, recently widowed by her half-Irish husband, returns to his writer’s cottage on the remote western cusp of the country, where new economic forces and those who wield them clash with homespun locals and their way of life. Upon arrival, Martha encounters a small cast of men emblematic of the conflict: relentlessly ambitious real estate mogul Eugene Riordan; stalwart Paddy O’Connell, a cottage owner at odds with Eugene; and Colm, a young man with fierce loyalty to his home town. Eugene is trying to buy Paddy out of his farmland, but the plucky old Irishman resists him at every turn. As Martha gets to know Paddy and helps him convalesce after an injury, she has time to reflect on her past and begins to truly process the death of her son 20 years before—when he was only 10 years old. Colm is the same age as her son would have been. The conflict between a traditional but decaying Ireland and a newer, greedier one is an intriguing backdrop, but the novel’s thin plot never rises to the drama of the landscape, and Hubbard’s characters are less subtly crafted than her setting: Paddy is a hasty sketch of a stubborn farmer; Eugene is cartoonishly cold; Colm is comically charming. Despite thin plotting, Hubbard’s ruminations on grief carry this novel and should appeal to fans of Kristin Hannah or Claire-Louise Bennett. (Sept.)