[.ca] Blessed Are the Cheesemakers (ISBN 0552771031)

Must Read for Book Clubs AND Cheese Lovers:
I hope my book club will take this on as a monthly selection because I'm dying to hear what my neighbors think of this whacky, eclectic tale. From vegan, virgin milk maids singing show tunes to dairy cattle...to a run-away, come-home-again wife who ditched her louse of a husband in the south seas...to a recovering alcoholic, drug-addicted power-broker turned cheesemaker widower, this book has something for everyone. It's funny, sad, thought-provoking, and simply put a really, really good read. I haven't had so much fun, or laughed out loud so often, reading any other book. I found it on a library shelf but plan to add a copy to my permanent collection. It's a book I'm sure I'll enjoy reading again and loaning to friends!

LITE and (ch)EASY:
Although I had never heard of the author, I took a chance on this book mainly because I liked the pun in the title and thought the cover photo looked "soothing." However, because I love small town stories, Ireland, and cheese, my "risk" paid off. If you enjoy a pleasant combination of religion, dairy farming, romance, The Sound of Music sountrack, and culture shock, and enjoy stories where the characters' quirks and secrets unfold as gentle as an island breeze, this is a great book for you. The author is able to keep the right balance of humor, tragedy, and romance so I never felt like things were getting too silly, sad, or sappy. Lynch creates great characters and tells a fun and engaging story. I can whole-heartedly recommend this book!

Delicious!!:
This book is a delightful tale of those who need emotional and physcial healing, and the wonderful dairy farm and its inhabitants (some of whom are quite kooky) who provide it. The characters in this book are wonderfully written. The descriptions of the cheeses make one's mouth water. At times during this book I found myself smiling, laughing, and, yes, even crying (sobbing to be honest). It is a fantastic story, very well written, and I highly, highly recommend it. Add another five stars if you love cheese!

Clever title, sweet story, but crying for an editor:
I purchased this book on impulse, based on its clever title, although I don't generally read light love stories. Within a few pages, I found that the author did a few things that I found incredibly irritating. Here are the three main problems: 1) The book is supposed to be set in several places: New York City, an island in the South Seas and rural Ireland. However, the author has the characters in all three settings speaking exactly the same way, using exactly the same expressions and idioms. So, for example, the hero - a man who is supposed to be born in New England and living in New York - sounds just like the Irish milkmaid, who sounds just like one of the residents of the Sullivan Islands ... all of whom run around saying things like, "Jaysus, you eejit! Don't give me that bollocks!" Once the action had settled firmly in Ireland, I was less troubled by the fact that everyone sounded Irish. 2) The hero is supposed to be a stockbroker. Although the book contains only one (thankfully short) chapter set in the hero's office, not a single word of it rings true. The author manages to get every detail wrong, from the time the stock market opens to the way stock options are exercised (they are exercised, by the way, not cashed up) to the terminology used by the hero's boss (who describes the hero as part of a "broking team." I've never heard this expression before ... perhaps broking teams exist in New Zealand, the author's home country, but they do not exist in the American financial industry). I've been employed in the financial industry since 1990, so I do know a few things about how a brokerage office works and how industry people sound, and in those areas this book completely misses the mark. 3) The events leading to the hero's abrupt decision to go to Ireland are supposed to have taken place in an incredibly short period - only three months. Perhaps things could happen that quickly elsewhere in the world, but there is no way that the chain of events, whereby the hero loses his wife, is fired from his job and evicted from his home - could happen in New York in less than one year. Kit is supposed to be successful, sophisticated and knowledgeable urbanite, yet he seems to be completely ignorant of the law ... and he never once consults or even thinks of consulting an attorney. Never. Now ... there isn't a single American (let alone a New Yorker) who would sadly watch his or her life turn completely upside down without once saying,"Hey, you can't do this to me! I have rights here! I'm calling my lawyer!" But Kit, the hero of the book, seems to simply shrug his shoulders and accept everything passively. Now ... if the guy is such a passive, helpless, non-confrontational, non-aggressive wuss, how could he have possibly become a successful stockbroker? Now, I know it is a novel and a certain suspension of disbelief is required, but these things really should have been caught and corrected by any half-way competent editor. So, I don't really blame the author as much as I blame some of the people she praises in her "Acknowledgements" section: Ann Clifford, noted for "her wonderful editing" and Paul Davenport, who "helped me understand the sort of culture Kit might have worked in," either of whom should have caught and corrected these flaws before publication. Anyway ... if not for the clever title, I'd have passed on this book, but once I started, I kept with it. It really is a rather sweet love story with a touch of sex thrown in, and I imagine that people who tend to enjoy *cheesy* romance novels will enjoy this book.

Blessed are the readers:
This novel is a must for anybody who loves cheese, life, people, or the word "fecking". The characters, somewhat aloof at first (save Corrie and Fee, they're grandfathers to the bone) quickly wrap you around their stories. Kit, a New Yorker who gets kicked out of the rat race, draws you into the drama concerning his ex-wife and the child they lost. Abbey makes the move from a "primitive" island in the south pacific back to Ireland to search out the mystery of why her mother hates her grandfather. Their stories, and that of the half dozen singing pregasaurs, pull you into this book so far you can smell the cheese as it transforms from milk to curd, and you can feel the cool air as it seeps from the curing caves.