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The Tour: A feel-good Irish springtime read. (The Tour Series Book 1) Kindle Edition
USA Today Bestselling author Jean Grainger wants to take you to Ireland.
Guide Conor O’Shea has given hundreds of tours, and doesn’t expect this one to be any different, taking take a bus full of strangers through Ireland’s most colorful and iconic locations.
The passengers couldn’t be more different—a Wall Street banker, a man-hunting serial divorcee, a love-hungry cop and a very old lady with an incredible secret—but each wants something, and they all have something to hide.
Conor’s avoided conflict his whole life, but with every stop, his passengers uncover secrets and face truths that will change their lives.
Can Conor continue to watch from the sidelines? Or is he brave enough to face his own problems?
Witty, informative, and with a touch of romance, The Tour is as colourful and turbulent as the wild Atlantic coast. You’ll get an insider look at one of the world’s most beautiful places, as you take a tour you’ll never forget as you navigate the stunning vistas of gorgeous Ireland along with the hearts and minds of a cast of characters who will live with you, long after you've finished the last page.
Can you afford to miss the trip of a lifetime?
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateDecember 15, 2013
- File size4141 KB
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B00BC3TSSE
- Publisher : Jean Grainger; 1st edition (December 15, 2013)
- Publication date : December 15, 2013
- Language : English
- File size : 4141 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 472 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #9,439 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #23 in Holiday Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #49 in Women's Sagas
- #126 in Saga Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
JEAN GRAINGER
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
SELECTED BY BOOKBUB READERS IN TOP 19 OF HISTORICAL FICTION BOOKS
WINNER OF THE 2016 AUTHOR'S CIRCLE HISTORICAL NOVEL OF EXCELLENCE
'Warm and wise, reading a Jean Grainger novel is like sitting in the kitchen of a friend. Her authentic writing welcomes you into the heart of Ireland.' Kate Kerrigan, NYT Bestselling Author.
'In the same magical tradition as classic Irish storytellers, Maeve Binchy and Frank McCourt, Jean Grainger transports the reader into a world where the characters not only come alive, but become friends, who stay with you long after you've closed the last page. I have no doubt that Jean Grainger will be considered one of the finest historical novelists of our time.' Roberta Kagan, Bestselling author of 'All My Love, Detrick' series.
Hello and thanks for taking time out to check out my page. If you're wondering what you're getting with my books, then think of the late great Maeve Binchy but sometimes with an historical twist. I was born in Cork, Ireland in 1971 and I come from a large family of storytellers, so much so that we had to have 'The Talking Spoon', only the person holding the spoon could talk!
I have worked as a history lecturer at University, a teacher of English, History and Drama in secondary school, a playwright, and a tour guide of my beloved Ireland. I am married to the lovely Diarmuid and we have four children. We live in a 200 year old stone cottage in Mid-Cork with my family and the world's smallest dogs, called Scrappy and Scoobi..
My experiences leading groups, mainly from the United States, led me to write my first novel, 'The Tour'. My observances of the often funny, sometimes sad but always interesting events on tours fascinated me. People really did confide the most extraordinary things, the safety of strangers I suppose. It's a fictional story set on a tour bus but many of the characters are based on people I met over the years. Little was I to know that it would end up as a six-book series.
My first World War 2 novel, 'So Much Owed' is a family saga based in Ireland following the Buckley family of Dunderrig House. The story opens in the trenches of WW1 at the end of the war and moves to tranquil West Cork. As the next generation of the Buckley family find themselves embroiled once again in war, the action moves from Ireland to wartime Belfast, from occupied France to the inner sanctum of German society in neutral Dublin. The history of the period was my academic specialty so I'm delighted to be able to use it in a work of fiction.
Shadow of a Century is set in New York in 2015 as well as in Dublin during the events of Easter Week 1916, where Irish men and women fought valiantly to rid our island of British imperialism. While not my academic specialty, I loved researching this book. It's essentially a love story, but with a bit of intrigue thrown in for good measure.
Under Heaven's Shining Stars was published in 2016 and is set in my home city of Cork. This time it's against the backdrop of 1950s and 60s Ireland and it really is a book about friendship, family and the Catholic church. I have a deep personal affinity with all of my characters but this book is especially close to my heart.
A book I wrote while travelling with my family for a year in Australia is called Sisters of the Southern Cross, and don't forget to read the afterword on that one as to how that story came about - it's a tale stranger than fiction in its own right!
I wrote a novel called Letters of Freedom after hearing a woman on the radio one day explaining how being raised in state care prepared a person so poorly for the realities of independent living. Her story was so moving I was inspired to write a short novella there and then.
Carmel's story really seemed to touch people, and I got such a huge reaction from readers all over the world, many of them telling me the most extraordinary stories from their own lives, that I wrote a sequel. The Future's Not Ours To See follows Carmel as she ventures forth into a world she knows so little of is. The third Carmel and Sharif book, What Will be, is also available and it finishes the story of this woman who spent her entire childhood believing something that wasn't true. She returns to Ireland, very reluctantly and discovers that in order to go forward she has to first make peace with her past.
My next series, The Robinswood Story, opens with What Once Was True, and tells the story of a big old house in Co Waterford during WW2. Two families live there, the impoverished Keneficks who own it and the hard-working Murphys who work for them. The sequel to this, Return to Robinswood, continues the story, and the final instalment, Trials and Tribulations, takes it to its conclusion.
The Star and the Shamrock, the Emerald Horizon, The Hard Way Home and The World Starts Anew is a series of four books about two little German Jewish children who find themselves on the Kindertransport out of Berlin. They end up in Northern Ireland, and it was a real labour of love. The research was harrowing at times, but I hope I've done justice to the stories of so many children who escaped the Nazi terror, often never again to see their parents. This is a book of hope in dark times, of the enduring power of love and the incredible resilience of the human spirit.
Another series, The Queenstown Series, centres on twelve year old Harp Devereaux and her mother Rose, and the first book, Last Port of Call, opens on the day Titanic sails from Queenstown, Co Cork on her last fateful journey. It is a bestselling series and people really seem to connect to the precocious Harp and her hard-working mother as they battle to survive in a society where conforming and playing by the rules was paramount. It is a four-book series, The West's Awake, The Harp and the Rose and Roaring Liberty completing the set.
Many of the people who have reviewed my books have said that you get to know the characters and really become attached to them. That's wonderful for me to hear because that's how I feel about them too. I grew up on Maeve Binchy and Deirdre Purcell and I aspired to being like them. If you buy one of my books, I'm very grateful and I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, or even if you don't, please take the time to post a review. Writing is a source of constant contentment to me and I am so fortunate to have the time and the inclination to do it, but to read a review written by a reader really does make my day.
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Now I’m not saying Jean Grainger did not write a good book, but I was a bit confused. For example: When was this supposed to take place? There is a (no spoilers) woman who is so shy that it seems to hurt her to meet your eyes! She tells Connor, the tour guide, she was born in 1920? Now if I’m wrong on that, who was? The reason I’m saying this is because she doesn’t come across as someone born in 1920? But she’s on this tour so that she can find out more of her ancestry. That’s great...but it seemed like it came out of no where and I felt like I was being introduced to other characters and at this point I couldn’t keep up with the ones who were there?!
Yes it’s a tour through a part of Ireland, but I can honestly say the description of the book is NOT in the book. We are not introduced to the amazing beauty of Ireland. We are introduced to women, men and a boy that are all dysfunctional, well not all, but a lot. The title should be “The Tour and how it changed lives” because that’s exactly what it was about. Another example: Connor, a fantastic Irish tour driver, has a tour planned daily, plus room & board. It seems as if he’s ready to drop them off for their destination on the particular tour of the day, something crazy happens to one of them. Whether it’s crazy or an enlightenment is what the reader will see. I felt as if there were too many soap operas and a just so happens “a millionaire is in the bunch” ready to help that person who deserves it. It’s realistic to a point then goes off the deep end to you’ll say, “oh come on!”
So all is not lost. I would still recommend this book, but I would seriously take it slow and don’t fall asleep you’ll forget who’s who & have to start again 😂😂😂
Before that, I have had - or taken - very little time out for fiction in a very very long time and have not become aware of any author whose work has been this special to me for decades - and I have never read this many books in such a short time, loving each and every single one of them so far, always so sad to turn the last page - especially the last page of a series, having grown to love so many many different people and hoping that there might be a next volume to come 'one day'...
I am awaiting the third in my only remaining series to come out any day now, hoping to buy it as a set.
After that, I will keep on the lookout for the next book(s) to come for - I have a feeling - as long as Jean Grainger keeps writing.
Each series is unique, as are the 'singles' ... I have come to love Ireland which I have never had a chance to visit as yet, even though I have been told of its beauty back in the 79s, early 80s when I lived in Paris. I have learned so much about the history, and Jean Grainger has brought so much of it alive in me and in such an amazing way that I could - and still do - be and remain on all sides in a way, well, almost all! I would never willingly have picked up a book on Irish hisory, or the World Wars, or the Holocaust... However, once I had sadly turned the last page of book 5 of The Tour series, I was 'hooked' and so grateful to Jean G and for Kindle because the next book or series was at my fingertips in seconds.
My heart expanded in one way or another with each and every book.
In addition to fact and fiction, I have also learned so many new words and was able to look them up on the web immediately. Not only that, I was able to look up - and even see and/or hear on occasion - places, instruments, music, historical sites, drinks, special ice cream even, flora fauna (all those Australian birds for instance, to not only know what they look like but also sound like)... Etc etc.
No matter where you begin, you're in for a treat, but if it is part of a series, I highly recommend you start with the first in a series - you will not regret it.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear Jean Grainger, for expanding my horizon and my heart in such a very very special way. I cannot imagine anyone not loving your books and you bt association, once they get started... Your characters are unforgettable and so varied, I feel as though they have become part of my life.
... And not wanting to wait another week or so before your most recent book comes out, after all, I plan to order the first in the Shamrok series, as soon as I finish this. I will also paste this review under The Tour - if it will let me. Bless your dear heart Jean Grainger - please keep writing.
Top reviews from other countries
This is the first of a series of 6 beautifully written books about Conor O'Shea, his family and friends and how their lives are influenced by some of the people and events from this first tour group. I have now read all 6 in sequence because quite frankly, I couldn't put them down! Thank you Jean Grainger!
I would recommend them as most enjoyable reading for a middle age to older group of people.