The Glorious Guinness Girls by Emily Hourican
The Glorious Guinness Girls is about the lives of the three Guinness sisters, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh, and their companion Fliss. The sisters are completely different characters and their personalities reflect the changing times as the novel’s timeline is from 1918 to 1930, and so it focuses on major events, like the Irish War of Independence. What I find amazing about this book is the narrator is Fliss, which means that the events that take place are from her perspective and there is a focus on her relationships, including the one with her brother. This novel gripped me and I wanted to keep turning the pages to know more about what happens next. There are a wide range of characters that you will like and dislike, but my favourite character is Fliss as she grows to become her own person and she helps each of the sisters in her own way to become individuals. The story’s location is between Dublin and London and moves between the past and the present (1978). I also love that the author has a mixture of historical figures and fictional people as it means that the story is not just about the upper classes, but also the working class. I would recommend this book to those who love historical fiction, particularly Irish historical fiction and for those who love Downton Abbey.
Submitted by Orlagh
