To Ride a White Horse

I was happy to be given the opportunity to read To Ride A White Horse for this blog tour and that I already have its sequel downloaded and awaiting my attention. Although the novel reads as a complete story so can be enjoyed as a standalone, I'm not ready to leave Kathleen Deacey's world just yet! Pamela Ford has done a wonderful job of convincingly portraying the grim truths of the Irish famine years which forced so many Irish to abandon their native homeland in order to survive. The political truths of English behaviour at the time did make for uncomfortable reading for me, especially as Priti Patel's 2018 comments about potential Irish food shortages showed such callous attitudes are still prevalent in the ruling classes here.

Kathleen Deacey is an easy heroine to like and to root for. Surrounded by so much tragedy, she still finds the inner strength to keep on striving for a better life in the future. Her time aboard Jack Montgomery's ship reminded me of other historical fiction I've read about sea-faring women - On Wilder Seas by Nikki Marmery and Wondrous Journeys In Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr for example - none of which describe the horrors of life aboard a whaling ship however. Some of Ford's scenes turned my stomach! Fortunately Kathleen's slow-burn romance was able to distract me. I loved the verbal sparring between Kathleen and Jack, and Jack's bitter grandfather is fun to read too. Occasionally I did feel the narrative was slowed too much by the will-they-won't-they storyline, but the historical apects had me completely hooked and I appreciated Ford's gentle inclusion of Irish speech patterns in her prose, such as starting sentences with 'Twas which added to the overall atmosphere. A compelling story, well told.