This novel , although I persevered, just wasn’t one for me. The other reviews captured my attention but sadly it didn’t live up to expectations. A slow story with a great deal of description of the people and their lives in Fara in Ireland. Starting off with the local doctor, his ministrations to the community, he struck me as a deep thinker, a lonely and sad charcuter. This leads onto the cattle farmer, his family and acquaintances and exploits getting his cattle to market, to Ronnie the doctor’s daughter and the little baby Noelle. I found the style of writing lyrical and colloquial, warranting a re-read. .A very honest betrayal of Irish country folk at Christmas time during the early 1960s.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Bloomsbury for this ARC in exchange for an independent review

This book so perfectly describes certain time and place 60s rural Island you can almost smell their fires. the Story tales of a country doctor and his oldest spinster daughter who just before Christmas in 1962 discover an abandoned baby. we watch as the new family develops and learn more about their characters.
The author has a very clear individual voice full of subtleties and understatement.
I often underline sentences When I’m reading or highlight them on my Kindle and particularly enjoyed many of his sentence mostly for their poetry and beauty I found myself highlighting sentences multiple times sometimes even on a single page whilst reading this book is truly lovely
There are some really funny moments to add to the tenderness and poignancy of the story I really love this book
The book has a very clear sense of place and is firmly rooted in rural Ireland
The author has the ability to describe personal characteristics perfectly and you feel that you know the characters as well by the end of the story
I originally copy of the novel on NetGalley UK the book is published in October 2024 by Bloomsbury publishing plc
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads and my book blog bionicsarahsbooks.wordpress.com. After publication it will also appear on Amazon UK.

This could well be my favourite December/Christmas story. Set in Faha, Ireland (as was a previous book by Wiliams) this is the account of some days in December leading up to Christmas, and the unexpected arrival of a tiny child. The impact of this arrival on the lives of Dr Jack Troy and his daughter is extraordinary and one wonders if the good doctor will even commit a crime in order to help his eldest daughter.

The writing is lyrical; the characters are so real that I missed them after I finished the book; and even though it is set in the early 1960's, and in a part of Ireland I have never visited, it all became very real and I found myself emotionally involved.

Some of the descriptive writing is poetical -
‘With each moment, the sky changed. In one, as Jude ran, the stars were bumping off a black-blue screen. In the next, stars had been taken in, the whole of the east towards Limerick a commotion of charcoal, taupe and grey that swirled in mingle, as though a liquid light had been poured into a darker substance and you could not say if night or day would emerge. All lending substance to those who since before Christ had watched the December sky for portents.’

There are some allegorical themes (an unexpected baby at Christmas and an unmarried virgin mother, for instance) and some deep questions - how far would or should a father go for his child? How much should one conform to the social niceties and morales of one's time?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poetic and deeply moving book. Many thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Set in Faha, this is the story of Doctor Troy, his daughter Ronnie and the little baby Noelle.
When Noelle enters the picture, everything around them changes.
Certainly a heartwarming and tender story. Just a little stretched out.
Plot 3
Characterisation 4
Prose 3
Themes, context and mood 5
Setting 5
Overall, 3.5 stars.
I am looking forward to catching up on the writer’s other work

I had never heard of this author, so it was a great surprise to me that he was long listed for the Booker prize ten years ago. This is a very Irish novel, full of background stories which I found difficult to get into at first, as the main story took a long time to get going. However, I relaxed into the prose and was finally gripped. There are some very funny bits but I did not see any "magical realism", unless they are talking about a person coming back to life, a device I read he has used before. I loved it and will be reading other books Niall has written. I believe there is a previous book with the same characters and setting. I hope there is a third book coming!

They say it takes a community to raise a child so when in 1962 an abandoned child is found the local doctor feels like he has to step in and take charge.

This is a read filled with tension and drama and is an amazing tale.

I loved the setting of Faha, the descriptive setting of the time and place is quite lovely. I particularly loved the writing, it is like reading a poem,

This is the first time I have come across this author and I want to read more as I loved this so much

In 1962 a baby is found abandoned in a small town at Christmas time and is taken to the local doctor.
The doctor and his daughter care for the baby and try to keep it safe.
This book has some good characters and highlights the importance of caring and community.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was a child in the 60s and this book takes me right back to those simpler times in a community where everybody knows everybody.

Written in a rich lyrical style and peopled with a host of fascinating characters it's a novel to savour. There's much to induce a strong feeling of nostalgia.

I was a little doubtful about the doctor's manipulative behaviour. It seemed somewhat unlikely, hence 4 rather than 5 stars.

The very epitome of page-turner with a chilling storyline that grips from the first and kept me guessing right up to the heart-racing denouement STUNNER ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A seasonal Christmas gem of a story.
Set in 1962, four years after the events in This is Happiness, this story of Faha in the west of Ireland concerns Doctor Jack Troy and his eldest daughter, Ronnie, who is now 29. Although familiarity with the milieu enhanced my enjoyment of the book, it can read as a standalone novel.
The seemingly slight story of a past that is no more, but which is still within memory, is told beautifully so as to raise it above itself, to something altogether more like a Christmas fable.
A little tension and drama provides uncertainty as to the conclusion, which though not unexpected, might still be taken to make a little miracle, given the story’s time and place. And this might be the book’s weakness, that it is perhaps necessary to understand its setting to fully appreciate the horror of matters passing to state and church. The fulsome telling of the story, the lilt of the language and the depiction of character (I don’t think caricature, although some might), these are what makes this a really good read.

Since I enjoyed ‘This is Happiness’ so much a few years ago, I was delighted to find myself revisiting Faha and recognising some of its characters here. Some time has passed and Doctor Troy has only his eldest daughter, Ronnie, living with him now. Village life is uneventful until the fair comes, and goes, leaving behind an abandoned baby, taken into the doctor’s house in secrecy to be cared for and cherished by Ronnie. The story of how the doctor seeks to keep the baby from the clutches of the state and therefore the church forms the second half of the book and it is an intense emotional experience to the very last page. There are darker themes here than in the earlier book and a tension maintained throughout as to how things might turn out for the characters we come to care about. Nothing will ever be the same for them, as individuals, within the family and within the community.

Niall Williams’ writing is sublime and deeply insightful. I was pausing on almost every page to mull over what I’d just read. He conjures up a sense of place so well - landscape, weather and especially characters combined. Some examples:

‘With each moment, the sky changed. In one, as Jude ran, the stars were bumping off a black-blue screen. In the next, stars had been taken in, the whole of the east towards Limerick a commotion of charcoal, taupe and grey that swirled in mingle, as though a liquid light had been poured into a darker substance and you could not say if night or day would emerge. All lending substance to those who since before Christ had watched the December sky for portents.’

‘The morning after intimacy is its own country. You go softly there. That country has its own code, its own custom and language, which is more tender, shyer and kinder than the one that applies when people are in ordinary daylight.’

‘He recalled then the fantastical notion of the old man, who, in his last year, claimed that the purpose of ageing was to grow into your soul, the one you have been carrying all along. Yes, Jack Troy thought. The one you had as a child.’

With thanks to Bloomsbury via NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC. Highly recommended.

Set in the rain-soaked coastal community of Faha in December 1962, Time of the Child is a sequel of sorts to This is Happiness which saw the village on the brink of electrification. It’s the story of what happens when twelve-year-old Jude discovers a baby abandoned and barely alive in the lee of the church wall during the Christmas fair. Jude takes the child to Doctor Troy who manages to revive her. Knowing what awaits the baby should Church and State get wind of her existence, the doctor swears Jude to secrecy while his unmarried daughter takes on her care as if she were her own.
It took me a while to become accustomed to Williams’ richly lyrical style but his storytelling skills are such that it was worth the effort. Rather like Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, this is a quintessential Christmas story which follows similar themes but in a very different way. The same affectionate, occasionally dark humour runs through Williams’ narrative as This is Happiness, studded with stories of Faha’s more colourful characters, but he has points to make about the cruelty of Church and State towards both abandoned children and the aged, and makes them well. I enjoyed this one but not as much as Williams’ previous novel which I loved. That said, keen fans of Williams’ writing will probably be more than happy with it.

Set in 1962, this book tell the story of a small town doctor and his youngest daughter who find themselves in an unusual situation when a baby is unexpectedly left in their care.

Although they both have unfulfilled expectations in their lives, and certain disappointments to contend with, over the course of one crucial winter, looking after the baby, they come to reach a different understanding not of themselves, but also of the community that they were convinced that they knew so well...

This is a subtle and touching story which deals with many emotions, from the universal to the very particular. Jack and Ronnie's characters are very well developed, with elements that many readers will find relatable. An engrossing story with unexpected charms, it gets 3.5 stars.

Thrilled to have a new Williams book to read.
I've very much enjoyed all his others.
This is warm, and tender and full of people I found myself caring about.
Beautifully written.
Another book that left me a bit emotional.




I probably need to reread This is happiness now, to catch up with the original story.