The Connellys of County Down

Lange's debut We Are the Brennans is one of my favorite juicy, big-hearted family novels and I'd so been looking forward to her next family drama, which I read months ago but can't miss the opportunity to tell you about it now that it's finally out in the world. (I nearly included it in the Summer Reading Guide but the way the categories shook out, there just wasn't room.) This story is about the three adult children in the Connolly family. In the opening pages, Tara is released from prison after serving 18 months on a drug charge and goes home to see her siblings: her brother, a single dad who is still struggling with lingering symptoms from a brain injury sustained many moons ago, and sister, the Type A firstborn who always has things under control but who is struggling at the moment, not that she’ll admit that to her siblings. I love stories of complicated families, and was also pleasantly surprised to discover this novel features a book within a book: the title references the ongoing story the mother of the now-grown Connolly children once told them at bedtime.