Reading this book is like stepping into a warm bath, portraying as it does a near-perfect community where for the most part people live in harmony with their neighbors, the laws are sensible and humane and women can have careers and obtain divorces.

Unfortunately, I do not know enough about Ireland in this period to be able to tell how factual this actually is, and reading it had me in the same pensive state I am in when I read one of Peter Tremayne’s books. This aside, Ms Harrison weaves a compelling yarn and has painted in a lush and appealing backdrop for it. Mara teaches a law school where her students range in age from ten to eighteen, looking after them more like a mother than a teacher. Jolly King Turlough Don O’Brien comes calling, and Mara settles disputes among her neighbors, tends her pretty garden and hunts wolves with her wolfhound Bran. It is the sort of book that one is sad to end, as it paints such an appealing picture of how life ought to be that the series is bound to have great appeal, and run and run. If you want a feel-good read, this is definitely the feel-good book of 2007 so far.