It really is lovely, though, and the next time Bethany and I decide that we want to pick out books for each other to read, I think I’m going to have her read this one.

Set in a rural farm in Kelsha, County Wicklow, in 1950s Ireland, it describes one summer when the eponymous Annie Dunne and her cousin Sarah look after her nephew Trevor’s two young children while he and his wife visit London on undescribed business.

She is lonely, feels the emptiness of never having married and had her own children, and she fears the position she occupies as someone who has been and can be again easily discarded. This is the third novel I’ve read by Sebastian Barry (the others were The Secret Scripture and A Long Long Way) and he’s yet to disappoint. I’ve still got his debut novel to read but hanging on to it for a bit longer… don’t want to be in a situation when I have no more Barry left in the pile!

Life goes on for Annie and Sarah--the seasons change and the years pass but their work remains the same.Eamonn Sweeney writing in The Guardian compared the book to the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot saying "Waiting for Godot has been described as a play in which nothing happens, twice. Sebastian Barry, πολύ πριν γίνει γνωστός με τη Μυστική γραφή, κόντεψα να το παρατήσω από τις πρώτες σελίδες, αλλά ευτυχώς επέμεινα. But when June is queen, eternally in the grasses, in the wood pigeons, in the dank rooks, in the potato gardens, in the cabbage patches, wild dreams are given birth to with all the mighty energy of the full-blowing year. Not a lot happens in this one; it’s just the story of all the little events, both large and small, that make up this summer in Annie Dunne’s life.

Tony Mastrogiorgio for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote the book was a "superb new novel" although says there "was there is a brief flickering of regret at first impressions" he says "that brief doubt is replaced by what can only be described as wonder.Barry brings to life the insecurity of a humpbacked woman who must depend on others for a home and who pays fof the privilege of half a bed and daily food by backbreaking labor. A summer of adventure, pain, delight and ultimately epiphany unfolds for both the children and their elderly caretakers in this poignant and exquisitely told story of innocence, loss and reconciliation. I carry the bed heat on the surface of my skin and the soft breeze of the night shows great interest in me, raising the hairs on my arms. Billy is a dark and complex character, but Barry's real triumph is Annie, who lives a quiet life set to ''the small music of the hens'' but inside churns and rages like a waterfall. In the novel, Lillie remembers Annie as being often cross, rarely smiling and having a very sharp tongue.