The Maid of Ballymacool

2.25 stars
This one was a miss for me. It's a Cinderella retelling, which I didn't know up front, but which was pretty obvious soon. As a fiction novel, though, I felt like the story relied too much on an idea of “this is her life because she is Cinderella” and never told me the “why” of the reason she is staying there instead of going elsewhere for a job. Likewise, the story didn't elaborate the “why” of what made Michael who he was; he just had quirks without reasons.

The story did keep me reading as I liked the plotting and was curious where it was going. Maureen's bits were strange and only puzzled me more about her role; I think the story would have been stronger without her odd scenes.

There was a lot of Gaelic and I think if I hadn't been learning Gaelic, I'd have been quite mystified as to the meaning of some of the phrases. Perhaps the final copy has a glossary to help with this.

Questions I'd have liked to know...
-Why Michael took the time to learn Gaelic
-Why Michael prefers being casual and old-fashioned
-How Brianna got a good education
-Why “gathering eggs at age four” was considered abusive
-Why no church services are ever thought of in the school
-Why the school was considered acceptable to the upper class
-Why the line of punishment was chosen for Adeline (other than to throw the MCs together)
-What happens next with Adeline to make her grow up
-Why Brianna has been to the tree in the past many times but all of a sudden seems unable to tell how long she's been there.

I'd have also liked to see deeper scenes with both MCs instead of them seeming to always be reacting to events.

I did like that the retelling is non-magical.

I'd expect older teens to be the best audience for the book, especially if they enjoy Melanie Dickerson's works.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.

An easy read because it's so entirely predictable. All the standard tropes are here and Deibel uses them to decent effect. The pacing is good and characterization is simple. Overall, people who enjoy this sort of thing (Christian romance) will enjoy this but it's not my bag and if I'd realized how much god-bothering was in this I would not have requested an ARC. I was curious to read historical fiction set in Ireland but there was very little history, much to my disappointment; I appreciated the use of Gaelic however.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review.