Harriet Campbell is a young wife in the years after The Great War, living on the Ulster side of the border in a newly divided Ireland. She is married to a strict and harsh Presbyterian who becomes an Elder in their local church, Ballymount. They have a son, James whom Harriet dotes upon, and jealously protects from their interfering Catholic housemaid, and from her husband who wants to toughen James in a strict Protestant environment. But there are far more worries for Harriet as James grows into an adult.
The narrative is in Harriet’s first person, interspersed with her thoughts as she looks back upon her life in 1982, as by then an old woman dying in a nursing home in Northern Ireland. It is a tale of religious intolerance, rigidity and an ability to forgive. Harriet herself had a strict religious upbringing that moulded her character and gave her a foundation of intolerance and righteousness that lasted right up until her death. This is not a particularly profound or difficult book to read, though it is interesting and paced well, examining the horrors of religious bigotry. The narrative plods along somewhat, but it is ultimately, a moving and rather chastening story.

The blurb and description of this novel attracted me to it initially and I did enjoy the writing style. Some of the descriptions were quite poetic and the time and place were depicted well through the detail. However, I personally found the characters difficult to connect with. The resolution which I was expecting never came and the ending felt somewhat grim and hopeless. A well written and carefully created story, but unfortunately, not for me.