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    Home » Blog » St. Patrick's Day

    12 Irish Books About Love and Luck

    Published: Feb 17, 2022 by Tiffany Dahle · This post may contain affiliate links.

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    Collage of four books Irish Eyes, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Library at the Edge of the World, and Love and Luck with text The Best Irish Books, Irish Books about luck and love.

    Looking for a fun Irish book to read with your book club for St. Patrick's Day? Or maybe you're planning a trip to Ireland and just want to get inspired before you go. From romances to historical fiction, you'll find a lucky pick here.

    A collage of four Irish books for St. Patrick's Day to read for your book club group. From Historical fiction to romance, fun options for adults.

    There's something magical about Ireland and all its legends, and Irish books about love and luck capture that feeling perfectly. How many of these have you read before?

    We've probably all heard about Frank McCort's Angela's Ashes, which is a gritty look at the reality of growing up poor in a challenging time in Ireland's history, but there's so much more to the emerald green isle than just that.

    Irish books are as varied as the island itself.

    This list includes:

    • Books set in Ireland
    • Irish or Irish-American characters
    • A few fun YA books about luck to mix things up

    Find your favorite light read, mystery, historical fiction, or memoir. They're all here to fit whatever mood you and your book club friends are in.

    Luck? Love? It's your choice.

    P.S. Looking for good reads before you travel to Ireland? This list of non-fiction books on Ireland has excellent options for both adults and kids.

    Irish Books About Love and Luck

    Love & Luck

    Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding and hoping she can stop thinking about the one thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken - and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments between the two once inseparable siblings.

    When Addie discovers an unusual guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, hidden in the dusty shelves of the hotel library, she finds herself on a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle, trapped in the world’s smallest vehicle with Ian and his admittedly cute, Irish-accented friend Rowan. Will she heal her broken heart and her relationship with her brother?

    What the Wind Knows

    Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes.

    There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into the Ireland of 1921. Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of Dr. Thomas Smith, guardian to a young boy who is oddly familiar. Mistaken for the boy’s long-missing mother, Anne adopts her identity, convinced the woman’s disappearance is connected to her own.

    Irish Eyes: A Callahan Garrity Mystery

    When Callahan Garrity gets caught in a liquor store holdup on the way home from a St. Paddy's Day party, one of her best friends is shot. Callahan and her House Mouse cleaning crew dive into the investigation - only to discover that her old friend might have been working both sides of the law as an accomplice in a string of robberies.

    It will take every trick they've got to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding an Irish police organization and prove that the case is more than it seems.

    Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

    Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story.

    Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

    A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

    From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior - such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce - no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama.

    By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty.

    Beginner's Luck

    A university research scientist, Kit Averin is practical to a fault. Even after she and her friends Zoe and Greer win the lottery, Kit doesn’t want the windfall to change her life in any way except one: she’s finally buying her first real home.

    Now, between work and her new fixer-upper house, she has more than enough to keep her busy. But then an unsettlingly handsome and determined corporate recruiter shows up in her lab - and manages to work his way into her heart.

    Windfall

    Alice has never believed in luck, but that doesn’t stop her from rooting for love. After pining for her best friend Teddy for years, she jokingly gifts him a lottery ticket - attached to a note professing her love - on his birthday. Then, the unthinkable happens: he actually wins. 

    At first, it seems like the luckiest thing on earth. But as Teddy gets swept up by his $140 million windfall and fame and fortune come between them, Alice is forced to consider whether her stroke of good fortune might have been anything but.

    The Guest List

    On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

    And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

    Carnegie's Maid

    Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the woman who shares her name has vanished, and assuming her identity just might get Clara some money to send back home.

    Clara must rely on resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for and an uncanny understanding of business, attributes that quickly gain her Carnegie's trust. But she still can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future - and her family's.

    We Are the Brennans

    When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all - and her high school sweetheart - five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions.

    Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them.

    The Library at the Edge of the World

    As she drives her mobile library van between villages of Ireland’s West Coast, Hanna Casey tries not to think about a lot of things.

    Like the sophisticated lifestyle she abandoned after finding her English barrister husband in bed with another woman. Or that she’s back in Lissbeg, the rural Irish town she walked away from in her teens, living in the back bedroom of her overbearing mother’s retirement bungalow. Or, worse yet, her nagging fear that, as the local librarian and a prominent figure in the community, her failed marriage and ignominious return have made her a focus of gossip.

    An Irish Wish

    Thorny, stubborn and strong, Erin McKinnon is as tough and beautiful as an Irish rose. Horse rancher Burke Logan is intrigued by his neighbors’ cousin when he meets her on a trip to Ireland, but Erin thinks Burke is nothing but a brutish American.

    Impressed by her cleverness, and determined to win her over, Burke offers Erin a job at his farm in Maryland. It’s a big change from her small Irish hometown, but she decides to take a chance.

    More Irish Fun

    Finished the book and now want to watch the movie? Don't miss these fun Irish movies for St. Patrick's Day:

    • A photo collage shows the movie posters for four Irish movies for St. Patrick's Day.
      8 Romantic Irish Movies for St. Patrick's Day
    Collage of four books Irish Eyes, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Library at the Edge of the World, and Love and Luck with text The Best Irish Books, Irish Books about luck and love.

    More St. Patrick's Day Ideas

    • A photo collage shows several easy desserts to make for St. Patrick's Day with your kids.
      11 Easy St. Patrick's Day Treats for Kids
    • A square of Irish meat pie on a plate with carrots and cabbage.
      Irish Beef Pot Pie
    • A cake plate has several squares of cereal bars in rainbow colors with mini marshmallows scattered about.
      Mini Trix Rice Krispie Treats
    • A photo collage shows several easy St. Patrick's Day sugar cookie ideas.
      2-Color St. Patrick's Day Cookies

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    Hi, I'm Tiffany!
    I believe a great family recipe is one that makes everyone at the table happy, not just the kids. I'm the author of two bestselling cookbooks for kids that are chock full of recipes everyone in your family will love. I'm also the hostess of the best online book club for moms.

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