Random Things Tours: After the Rising&Before the Fall by Orna Ross

 

Historical fiction novels are not easy and not for everyone. They request your mind at maximum capacity as the reader should not only deal with the usual intrusion in other people´s lives, but is also facing complex historical and social circumstances he or she may hardly have heard about before. Personally, I am a very parcimonious reader of books set in a specific historical context because compared with other books, it forces me to do an additional research of circumstances and historical facts - if there is something that can be call it like that; still, I feel compelled to have my own non-fictional investigation of the fictional setting.

I come across award-winning author Orna Ross mostly through her poetry and particularly her involvement on behalf of independent authors and creative publishing industry. After the Rising&Before the Fall was my first encounter with her historical fiction work. 

For the short-attention span reader - which I am myself sometimes as well - the fact that the two volumes count over 500 pages may sound discouraging. However, I confess that it is so well written that I hardly felt the weight of the pages. Instead, the smart educated writing balances historical facts with intricated personal histories in such a smooth way that one hardly notice the passage of time. 

Jo Devereux is returning to the small Irish village where she had to break up with the love of her life, to burry her mother, with whom she did not speak for 20 years. Family letters and documents lead her to a very complex family mystery enfolding under our eyes in the book. The social and historical details are molded to allow the fictional story to develop. 

Orna Ross is a fine writer, with a great sense of balance and which creates skilfully authentic stories that stay in your mind both for the historical resonance as for their literary relevance. I will be interested in reading more historical fiction by her and of course, to pay more attention to the more or less recent Irish history.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own