Name: Trespasses
Rating: 3.96 (25 reviews)
ISBN: 9780593540893

Louise Kennedy

Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.

Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family’s pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who’s made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment – Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married – Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.
 
As tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish.

A Novel

Trespasses

Ireland Compton

Celia Romaniuk

For most of the book, I was enjoying a well-written account of life during the Troubles, told through an engaging and realistic cast of characters. Then the ending came. It was a gut punch that left me truly saddened.

Frederik De Bosschere

Cushla Lavery lives with her mother, Gina, in a small town in Northern Ireland. At twenty-four, she splits her time between her role as a teacher to a class of seven-year-olds, and regular bartending shifts in the pub owned by her family. It's here, on a day like any other – as the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploding, another man shot, killed, beaten or left for dead – that she meets Michael McCusker, an older (and married) barrister who draws her into his sophisticated group of friends. Then there's Davy McGeown, the young boy in Cushla's class that she can't help but care for after his father becomes the victim of a ruthless attack. But as Cushla becomes increasingly involved in her relationship with Michael and her investment in the McGeown family, political tensions in the town grow ever stronger, threatening to destroy all she is working to hold together. As tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a masterfully executed and intimate portrait of those caught between the warring realms of the personal and political, rooted in a turbulent and brutally imagined moment of history – where it's not just what you do that matters, but what you are.

Trespasses details the affair between Cushla, a Catholic school teacher, and Michael, an older, married Protestant, set during the 1975 Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I found Cushla and Michael and their whole relationship annoying. The power balance between them was extremely problematic and controlling. While this was acknowledged by the author throughout the book by writing about Cushla's awareness of it, the willingness of Cushla to allow it to continue made the romance fall flat for me. I need more growth from these characters and some more reflection about the actions within the novel. I would have also liked some more involvement and thoughts from the supporting characters, it was all from Cushla's POV, and we got her thoughts throughout, but there was no voicing of opinions from the other characters, they all sort of felt one dimensional and had no substance to them. Except Davy, I really loved Davy!

The writing was beautiful and pulled along the story, despite the lack of speech marks (which I find highly annoying!) 

I found the whole history of the troubles people faced as they just tried to live normal lives extremely enlightening, and this is the moment that carried the heartbreak in the book for me. It was difficult to read these parts without feeling a twinge in my heart, but I guess I also wanted more about this as it felt subsidiary, despite being the point of novel, or at least what I grasped as the point when reading the synopsis.

An utterly heartbreaking read, both in the storyline of the main characters, but also all the interwoven characters within their story. However, I just don't think it was a book for myself.

Victoria Justice

Trespasses details the affair between Cushla, a Catholic school teacher, and Michael, an older, married Protestant, set during the 1975 Troubles in Northern Ireland.

I found Cushla and Michael and their whole relationship annoying. The power balance between them was extremely problematic and controlling. While this was acknowledged by the author throughout the book by writing about Cushla's awareness of it, the willingness of Cushla to allow it to continue made the romance fall flat for me. I need more growth from these characters and some more reflection about the actions within the novel. I would have also liked some more involvement and thoughts from the supporting characters, it was all from Cushla's POV, and we got her thoughts throughout, but there was no voicing of opinions from the other characters, they all sort of felt one dimensional and had no substance to them. Except Davy, I really loved Davy!

The writing was beautiful and pulled along the story, despite the lack of speech marks (which I find highly annoying!) 

I found the whole history of the troubles people faced as they just tried to live normal lives extremely enlightening, and this is the moment that carried the heartbreak in the book for me. It was difficult to read these parts without feeling a twinge in my heart, but I guess I also wanted more about this as it felt subsidiary, despite being the point of novel, or at least what I grasped as the point when reading the synopsis.

An utterly heartbreaking read, both in the storyline of the main characters, but also all the interwoven characters within their story. However, I just don't think it was a book for myself.

Trespasses A Novel

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