Romance in Ireland: 2 Novels

Two novels tell the stories of Americans heading off to Ireland – and finding romance.

Gillian, a university librarian, turns 25 – and is contacted by an attorney who turns over a safety deposit box key. Inside the box is her deceased mother’s diary, a ring, and money. After her father’s death, her mother had eventually remarried, to the well-to-do businessman J.W. Oaks. Gillian had been raised by her maternal grandmother – her mother and Oaks had divorced not long before her mother died.

Gillian receives a summer assignment from a magazine – a feature on Ireland. Oaks wants to talk with his stepdaughter, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Gillian thinks he abandoned her, but the story will turn out to be more complex. Oaks sends his son Pete to Ireland, ostensibly on hotel business, to track Gillian down and bring her back to the States. Romance follows and grows.

Kristy Tate

Irish Wishes by Kristy Tate is the story of what happens when Pete follows Gillian to Ireland. He learns that the scrawny, skinny 15-year-old he remembers has turned into a beautiful young woman. She finds that her admiration for her stepbrother is turning into something else entirely. 

Tate has published more than 20 books, including several in the Beyond series and the Witch Ways series. She writes romantic mysteries, humorous romance stories, and speculative young adult fiction. Irish Wishes is a fast-reading novel with a considerable flavor of Ireland. 

An Irish Heart by Jackie Zack is the story of advertising manager Greta Connor, who remembers her mother’s dying words, “Go to Cork,” and decides, when she’s 27, to do just that. She wants to see the place where her parents met. She decides to go “full Ireland” and stays at a small inn in a small Cork village, owned by the family of Aedan O’Riain. The inn is struggling, despite the good food and more-than-adequate accommodations.

Jackie Zack

Greta undertakes two projects – an advertising program for the inn and a search for her father’s background and history. For his part, Aedan at first believes that Greta is his old flame who left him at the altar, returning to haunt him. Greta is a dead ringer for the beautiful Iona. Only gradually does he come to learn that they’re two different women. And he finds himself falling in love with the young American who’s trying to help his family.

Zack is the author of five Christian fiction novels: A Chance Mistake, X-ed, Way of the Raven, Rafe’s Café Book 1, and An Irish Heart. She lives in Indiana.

An Irish Heart blends mistaken identity, secrets from the past, romance in the present, and a good measure of Irish scenery and countryside.