Product Description

After putting 16-year-old Christabel Gaines's abusive father in prison, Texas Ranger Judd Dunn marries her in name only to save their shared ranch from bankruptcy. Now, years later, their platonic marriage has given way to passionate yearnings that neither can handle. But danger is near and their feelings may be too little, too late.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1335062 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 522 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Whiskey Island (2000) introduced a large Irish-American family, including the three Donaghue sisters who share ownership of the historic Whiskey Island Saloon in Cleveland overlooking Lake Erie. In this sequel, Megan, the eldest, runs the business and is about to tie the knot with Nick, an ex-priest who works with troubled adolescents; Casey, newly married, is happily pregnant; and Peggy, the youngest, is a single mother who has interrupted her medical studies to care for infant son Kieran, recently diagnosed as autistic. During Megan's gala wedding reception at the saloon, a tornado strikes and the guests are trapped. Luckily, Megan's father remembers the secret tunnel constructed during Prohibition (to accommodate bootleggers) through which the guests crawl to safety. The narrative shifts to a tiny village in Ireland where Peggy has been invited to stay with elderly cousin Irene. Irene's remote cottage is ideal for the rigorous therapy Peggy plans for Kieran, and Irene hopes that the Donaghue sisters may help her solve the mystery of her father's death-he had emigrated to Cleveland. Meanwhile, Peggy is grudgingly attracted to handsome but dour Finn O'Malley, formerly the village physician, who gave up his practice after a tragic accident decimated his family. In Cleveland, restoration of the saloon is in progress but Megan's unhappiness in her new marriage drives her to join Peggy in Ireland. When Casey also arrives, Irene and the three sisters fit the puzzling pieces of their lineage together. A bit of Irish humor might have made this melodramatic tale an easier read, but Richards's heartfelt paeans to love and loyalty sweeten the mix.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Multi-layered, multi-generational saga
A multi-layered, multi-generational saga of an Irish family. Spanning the Atlantic ocean and richly populated with a diverse set of characters, Emilie Richards weaves stories together in a flashback style that works, tied together with humor, love, and tragedy. Beginning with a series of disasters during Megan Donaghue's wedding, the reader is then transported to Ireland with sister Peggy and her autistic young son Kieran to the home of a dying distant cousin. Misunderstandings, pubs and saloons, alcoholism, schizophrenia, debilitating grief, miracles, and autism, as well as the requisite red-headed Irish tempers give the story realism, and the setting is casually comfortable. A wonderfully hopeful glimpse into the lives and loves of the Donaghue Sisters.

Most entertaining!
I read this book unaware it must be the sequel to "Whiskey Island". Not a problem. The author pulls you in with each character and the storyline going from past to present, then back again was done smoothly. I'm looking for other books by this author!!

A satisfying visit with the fiesty Donaghue family
Occasionally life will hand us a situation and we don't know if we are strong enough to handle.

This is the case for Peggy Donaghue when she learns that her young son is autistic. So she puts her medical career on hold while she struggles to understand the condition that has her son locked in a world of his own. When she receives an offer to spend a year in Ireland with a distant relative, she grabs the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with her son and learn about her family's past in return.

Emilie Richards returns to the story of the Donaghue sisters in her novel, "The Parting Glass," a sequel to her bestselling book, "Whiskey Island," which began the chronicles of the lives of the Donaghue clan, the family who has been apart of Cleveland's large Irish community since days of the first immigrant's arrival.

Richards picks up her story of the feisty Donaghue sisters, focusing on little sister Peggy's story. Her decision to move to Ireland to live with elderly distant cousin Irene Tierney proves to be a move that will affect not only her life, but the lives of her entire family. As Peggy helps Irene unravel the mystery of their connected lineage, they discover family secrets that will soon come clearly important to the American side of the family. Experiencing love in the form of handsome but tragic Dr. Finn O'Malley will prove to be an added adventure that Peg hadn't planned on.

Back in the States, Megan, the eldest sister, has married her true love, Niccolo Andreani, an ex-priest who works with the trouble youth of their close-knit neighborhood. However, on the night of their wedding, a tornado strikes, all but leveling the historic Whiskey Island saloon, revealing a mysterious marking that will change the lives of everyone who comes into view of it. As they work to restore the saloon, Megan and Nick found out that married life is not exactly all wine and roses. As the couple work through communication problems early on, each wonders if they have made a mistake abandoning their former lives.

Only the middle sister, Casey, is living in relative harmony, having married her high school sweetheart, Jon Kovats and now is expecting their first child. But if one Donaghue ain't happy, none of them are happy, and the two older sister travel to Ireland to try to sort out their myriad of problems together, family style.

Intermixed with the Donaghue sisters' story is the story of Irene's family during the early days of Prohibition, and how their family became intertwined with the Donaghues in the beginning. The love story of Glenn Donaghue and Clare McNulty is heartbreaking and poignant.

Emilie Richards wraps up her Whiskey Island saga successfully, tying up loose ends and treating her fans to bits of Irish humor, angst, and whimsy in her writing. She ties her story together with glimpses into the past via letters written between the parish priest and his Irish sister. This gives wonderful background information, as well as bringing the story together for a magnificent and satisfying conclusion.