An Irish Country Village: A Novel [Paperback]

Patrick Taylor first charmed readers withAn Irish Country Doctor,a warm and enchanting novel in the tradition of James Herriot and Jan Karon. Now Taylor returns to the colorful Northern Ireland community of Ballybucklebo, where there's always something brewing beneath the village's deceptively sleepy surface.

Young Doctor Barry Laverty has only just begun his assistantship under his eccentric mentor, Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly, but he already feels right at home in Ballybucklebo. When the sudden death of a patient casts a cloud over Barry's reputation, his chances of establishing himself in the village are endangered, especially since the grieving widow is threatening a lawsuit.

Not all their challenges are medical in nature. When a greedy developer sets his sights on the very heart of the community, the village pub, it's up to the doctors to save the Black Swan (affectionately known to the locals as the Mucky Duck ) from being turned into an overpriced tourist trap. After all, the good citizens of Ballybucklebo need some place to drink to each other's health&.

Whether you've visited in the past, or are discovering Ballybucklebo for the first time,An Irish Country Villageis an ideal location for anyone looking for wit, warmth, and just a touch of blarney.

Patrick Taylor, M.D., is the author of the Irish Country books, includingAn Irish Country Doctor,An Irish Country Christmas,An Irish Country Girl, andAn Irish Country Courtship. Taylor was born and raised in Bangor, County Down in Northern Ireland. After qualifying as a specialist in 1969, he worked in Canada for thirty-one years. He now lives on Saltspring Island, British Columbia.

Highly readable& Detailed medical procedures of the era are fascinating to a modern reader& The book, with its spot-on dialects and neatly tied endings, largely succeeds as light el³+