Sweet Old World

Book excerpt: The highly anticipated second novel from the bestselling author of Careless. David Quinn's dream of family has for years eluded him. Surely what he wants is simple? It's only what other men have, but there's no woman in his life, and now that he's living on a remote island in the Atlantic, do his hopes still stand a chance? It's summer on the Irish island of Inishmore, and the tourists are arriving. They're coming for the wild beauty and the five thousand years of history, the Celtic legends and the burial sites of saints. They're coming for the drink and the sex and the craic. Seventeen-year-old Esther Bradley has come from Fremantle, on the west coast of Australia. On harsh Inishmore, where people have always struggled to survive, she is battling the landscape of her own mind. David Quinn is reluctant to catch Esther when she tumbles dangerously into his life, but happiness is about to burst upon him, and every simple thing he's wanted will soon be close enough to touch. But is anything ever really simple any more? Set among the ancient stories of the haunting Aran Islands, reaching to London in the 1980s and contemporary Australia, this is an unforgettable love story about life's wounds to the spirit and flesh, and the hope we all have for healing, for one more lucky roll of the dice. Following the bestselling and acclaimed Careless, Sweet Old World establishes Deborah Robertson as one of our most enthralling and original storytellers, a writer whose tender, fearless vision carries her readers close to the human heart. 'Sweet Old World is the worthy second novel by Deborah Robertson, a writer of much talent and subtlety. She captures the ease of love as it first descends and weaves a delicate narrative of longing, inevitability and, finally, acceptance' -- Courier Mail