Soda Bread on Sunday

Readers with a fondness for simple, engaging historical yarns should enjoy Nielsen's pleasant debut novel about a late-19th-century Irish family, but those searching for authenticity, complexity or compelling conflict may think they've picked up an Irish version of The Waltons. The saga begins when Cornelius Enright returns to Ireland from America and marries Anne Fitzgerald. The couple soon produces a thriving brood and settles into the country routine of an Irish farm family. The landscape darkens when Anne dies, but after an appropriate period of mourning, Cornelius marries a rich widow who wins the hearts of the rest of the clan. Two major subplots interrupt the breeding cycles. The first involves a murder witnessed by Cornelius's daughter Annie; the second, a relative's penchant for scandalous marriages. Both subplots have their tragic consequences, but neither does much to slow the Enrights' march of happiness, as Annie meets the man of her dreams and plans to follow her brothers to America. Nielsen writes with a simple charm--but surprisingly little grit, considering her subject, the tail end of the great Irish migration. (Sept.)