The Tide Between Us: 1 (The O'Neill Trilogy)

Product Information

This is a big book, well researched and well written in a very easy but gripping style by a young Irish writer. The family dynamic running through the story makes for addictive reading. The highs and lows of indentured servants and slaves moulded by the unremitting sun, human passion and violent beatings.

I love this series so much. If you’re in the mood for a low-angst, high-romance read, look no further! Eventually Art is promised seven gold coins for seven decades of service. He doubts his master will part with the coins. The morning Art sets out to claim his gratuity, he ignores his sense of foreboding that he may not return home alive. Declan is a surfer, but experienced an injury during a competition. One day, Declan rescued a sea turtle and brought it into a rehab center, where he meets Giana. From that moment, he knew that it was love at first sight and that he was all in the moment he met her.

Customer reviews

I desperately needed just more of everything. More about Declan, Giana, their respective careers as well as more about the deaf community and what we can do to save our oceans. Giana was the perfect character for these heavy topics and a lot of the smut could’ve been taken out to allow room for this additional information. The TURTLE!!!! Who knew a turtle could make me cry so much reading this book!!! PS Obsessed with the name of the turtle. When professional surfer, Declan Parks, recovers from an accident in Orchid City, he happens upon an injured sea turtle. Rushing her to a nearby rehab center, he meets marine biologist, Giana Cirone. There are so many, one that springs to mind is Isabel Allande – The House of Spirts. With her Chilean setting, memorable characters and an intriguing period, it’s one of the few books that I’ll read again.

Who knew all it would take was an injured turtle and a professional surfer to turn my life upside down?” Some Irish acquired land and slaves. Names like O’Hara and O’Connor were recorded in 1837 during the compensation hearings when slaves were freed and their owners remunerated. The strong Irish influence is seen in place names, Irish Town, Clonmel, Dublin Castle, Sligoville, Belfast, Athenry and Kildare. Not only are the Irish surnames and townlands evident of the strong shared history, there are striking similarities between the Maroon dance formations in Accompaong and Irish reels.It began in 1655 when England captured Jamaica from Spain, Oliver Cromwell needed to populate their new colony. Who better to use, than the Irish. Some were convicts, many indentured servants and very few of the Irish deportees had committed any great crimes. Deportation “beyond the sea, either within His Majesty’s dominions or elsewhere outside His Majesty’s Dominions” was one of their methods of dealing with the Irish Issue and more importantly, populating England’s new acquisition. Large numbers of the Irish exiles died from heat and diseases. Yseult carries secrets from the past that she hoped never to see surface again, but with the Garda presence now on her lands, it’s not long before Yseult has to make some decisions and face up to her family’s tragic story. Ireland, 1991: One hundred years later, a skeleton is discovered beneath a fallen tree on the grounds of Lugdale Estate. By its side is a gold coin minted in 1870. Yseult, the owner of the estate, watches as events unfold, fearful of the long-buried truths that may emerge about her family’s past and its links to the slave trade. As the skeleton gives up its secrets, Yseult realizes she too can no longer hide.

Any book involving slavery and the plantations and books that depict Ireland’s struggles through famine and the struggle for independence against an equally brutal landlord always tugs at my heart strings. This was a wonderful account and fictional novel that was well researched. What I particularly loved about this book and this particular story of repression is that the author also focused on a society trying to rebuild, not after war or famine but having been given freedom after a life where all the thinking had been suppressed. Now they needed new laws, structures, industry, trade, and a new culture and identity. I also loved the new historical setting of Jamaica, which I was not familiar with. I have rated this a 3 as although it starts with a seemingly powerful and gripping narrative from the young O’Neil, in part 2 the plot loses focus and is unsatisfactory. In her small-town beach romance, The Tides Between Us, Cali Melle follows marine biologist Diana Cirone and surfer Declan Parks. This book follows Giana & Declan. Declan is a pro surfer in town temporarily healing from an injury he got while surfing. He meets Giana when he brings in an injured turtle to her work. They immediately hit it off & the rest is history. The book is narrated by Art O’Neil and told in two timelines. As a boy Art is exiled after the execution of his father and many other men from his village in Ireland, and finds himself barely a child and working the lands of the “big house” in Jamaica. Industrious, clever, and hardworking Art finds himself in favour and noticed by the owners and overseers of the plantation, which allows him to generate money and dream of a future away from the troubled lands he left behind but still holds dear.

Two years ago, I spent a month in Cuba. I imagined the exiled Irish and their surprise at the landscape and torturous heat of the Caribbean, the people and culture that was so vastly different to Ireland. At the time of my travels to Cuba, I was working on a different historical novel that required a great deal of research. When I finished the first novel, I was reluctant to take on another novel with the same level of research, yet the Jamaican story needled me to explore it further. I found the voice of Art O’Neill, an eleven year old boy who crosses the Atlantic in 1821 and, once Art O’Neill began to talk, he couldn’t stop. This book really grabbed my attention from the start and kept me the whole way through, My favorite part was the interweaving family connections which were set early on and came together in the end very well. Some of these connections were not what I was expecting them to be, and I love that. These types of books, that have some events or family ties unknown, then you find it out near the end, are some of my favorite books.

At twenty-one years of age, Art O’Neill is made head overseer and is set to manage the estate for the next ten years at which point he will receive his promised gold coins and settle his debt levied on all prisoners from the slave ships. With freedom, plummeting property value, Art is able to buy land and with the abolition of the slave trade free villages are springing up everywhere with a society needing to learn a new type of civilisation. However, a new society learning to live without slavery, brought its own set of horrors, betrayals, crime, and greed as people were forced to think and live in a free world they were not accustomed to. I’ve read that 90% of deaf child are born to hearing parents. And 70% don’t learn sign language. That fact has always baffled me but makes Declan’s actions all the more sweet. I am in awe of Giana and Declans story and guess what it all started with a Turtle… Yes you read that right a Turtle. I am literally so gone for Declan Parks. This man is literally perfection. He saved a sea turtle and named it pop-tart, took the time to learn ASL every single day to communicate with his crush, and was a support system for her from the moment he met her. Oh my goodness, someone please give this man the title of best book boyfriend ever please. Olive Collins wraps a wonderful mystery around Art’s story, as the reader is taken forward to 1991. A skeleton is discovered on the grounds of Lugdale Estate, in the shadows of the Kerry Mountains in North Kerry. Art O’ Neill was born in the vicinity of this estate, where the present owner Yseult, now in her eighties, lives.Jamaica is an island that now claims 25% of it’s population to be of Irish descent. Through Olive’s research she discovered that ‘ There are words spoken in remote parts of Jamaica with a clear Irish lilt and there are songs sung reminiscent of the struggles that continued in their homeland while they laid roots in their exotic new home, Jamaica.’ Giana and Declan's relationship is a joy to follow. Declan isn't afraid to express his feelings, and their communication is spot on. That's right, no miscommunication here. Today I bring you my review of this heartbreaking tale of a young Irish boy, who was taken away from his home and family in Co. Kerry,and forced to become an indentured slave/servant on an island in the Caribbean. Olive Collins grew up in Thurles, Tipperary, and now lives in Kildare. For the last fifteen years, she has worked in advertising in print media and radio. She has always loved the diversity of books and people. She has travelled extensively and still enjoys exploring other cultures and countries. Her inspiration is the ordinary everyday people who feed her little snippets of their lives. It’s the unsaid and gaps in conversation that she finds most valuable.