I find these books very soothing -- it's nice to catch up with the characters and the gradually unfolding dramas of a small town. This one ends really well -- so much good news. I found the drama surrounding the new arrival fascinating. Does it trouble anyone else that both Fingal and Lord John's immediate go-to response for an unknown/ potentially difficult characters is to see what blackmail they can dig up? It's happened several times in the series thus far, and in this case seems justified -- I'm glad they use their powers for good, is all I'm saying. Imagine a village where the opposite was true. Anyway, aside from that troubling thought, I enjoyed this book. ( )

Not too much to say. This one was just boring. There's some slight tension because of a new character who just disappears into the ether. Taylor really needs to stay in the present day in his books. Him jumping back a few years to show Barry on rotation was not needed and was boring. I don't know how much longer these books can go. This used to be one of my favorite series because Taylor actually didn't just have happily ever after endings for people all of the time. These books usually surround a big problem in the village that O'Reilly really doesn't need to get involved with and then it's solved in like 5 chapters while we readers get flashback scenes that no one asked for. Here's hoping the next one self corrects.

"An Irish Country Family" deals a bit with the Troubles in Ireland (it's 1969) and with Barry and Sue trying and failing to get pregnant. Taylor also has Doctor O'Reilly dealing with a new arrival to Ballybucklebo who seems focused on preventing the village into making a nearby location into a place for men and women to listen to music and dance. Taylor also has readers following Barry back a few years prior to the start of "An Irish Country Doctor" to watch him during his medical rotation.

The characters are the same in this one really. We have Barry and Sue both getting frustrated that she can't get pregnant. I liked that Taylor had them discussing adoption, but you know that flamed out quickly.
O'Reilly still wants Kitty to retire but apparently he's not going to? I don't know, that whole plot-line needs to be dropped. It's annoying. Also I wonder why everyone goes to O'Reilly about things they can do without him. We had the whole surprise that took forever to unfold. We had the Marquis asking O'Reilly to accompany him when he honestly didn't need him.

I loathed the newcomer to the village and once again we have a man that does something horrible to a woman and it's just ignored? I don't know what to say here. It's a weird choice.

The writing was just okay in this one. I think I just got frustrated because the book seem to be moving at a glacial pace. Seeing the dates in the chapter headings made me feel impatient.

The flow of the book was off. Why Taylor decided to show Barry 6 years in the past made zero sense. Thankfully his chapters were short, however, they were not necessary. I hope this is the last flashback of his we get. Taylor kept doing this with O'Reilly and it soon wore out its welcome for me as a reader.

With regards to the setting, I think it's weird that Taylor wants to have Ballybucklebo be this perfect place in Ireland where Catholics and Protestants get together. There are some mentions of the fighting going on, but that's it. It's a weird choice and I don't know if he will ever get into more details or what in the series.

The book ends on a happy note, but also I had some confusion about things since we hear about a character who is moving but it's not mentioned before and I went wait what and then decided to move on because I didn't care a whit.

I still say "An Irish Country Girl" is the best book in this series. Taylor would do better to write more like that instead of the mismash between characters and past and present that isn't really working that well anymore. ( )

I find that I come to this series of Novels very late: as Dr Doctor Taylor so modestly takes care to tell us, through the voice of Mrs Maureen 'Kinky' Auchileck, one of his most charming characters, this is the FOURTEENTH occasion on which he has delighted us with his tales from the life of 'Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly'.

I am not sure as to the dramatic date of Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly's first appearance in the pages of the literature of Northern Ireland, but by Episode 14, we have reached 1969, and to prove it are presented with a veritable slew of real-life details, vividly bringing to life the author's hours spent online with newspaper archives of the period. But in Ballybucklebo it's good news: Catholics and Protestants get on so well here that before long, in the interests of political harmony, like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, it's a case of 'Hey Kids, let's put the show on right here!'

I think that what Patrick Taylor has created here is one of the very sharpest parodies I have read in recent years. But it doesn't do the obvious, finding humour in the events and characters of North Down in the late 1960s: Taylor is much too clever for that. No, Taylor's target - and it's a bullseye every time - is the sentimental novelist of small-town nostalgia and feel-good blarney: he spikes him repeatedly, relentlessly, and utterly without mercy, until the reader can take it no longer. The writing is sheer, pitch-perfect bliss: no noun need feel the want of an adjective, no verb an adverb, no institution escapes mention without a potted wikipedia definition. And Taylor's take on lesser authors' tin-eared dialogue is delicious: it was in Chapter 3, when I came upon the following 'conversation' between two old friends (from their days as medical students at - where else? - Queen's University Belfast) that I really thought I'd died and gone to heaven:

"[My exams are] behind me now. One early basic sciences exam called the Primary, four years training under supervision after our houseman's year, then the big one in London, written papers, practical cases at Saint Bart's, then orals at the Royal College itself."
"And you passed. You can put FRCS, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, after your name, drop 'Doctor' and adopt the honorific 'Mister'."
Jack laughed. "All because of some mediaeval academic dispute between physicians who demanded to be called 'Doctor' and barber surgeons who had to make do with 'Mister'." ... and so on, and so on, and on, and on. Priceless.

As a child, I read an Enid Blyton bedtime story in which a lazy little boy was given garden chores to do during 'bob-a-job' week. To his dismay, the owner of the garden refused to pay him when he came to collect his 'bob'. It seemed that the boy had failed properly to stack the shelves: had he done so, he would have found the money hidden there; instead of washing each flower-pot, he had merely sprayed the pile with the hose - thus missing the money hidden amongst the pots; you get the idea.

Taylor is playing a similar game here: for lazy little boys who don't care to read this book with due care and attention, only disappointment will result; but for the good scouts among us prepared to read it closely and to see it for what it is, wondrous gifts lie in store. ( )