Tipperary

"My wooing began in passion, was defined by violence and circumscribed by land; all these elements molded my soul." So writes Charles O'Brien, the unforgettable hero of bestselling author Frank Delaney's extraordinary new novel--a sweeping epic of obsession, profound devotion, and compelling history involving a turbulent era that would shape modern Ireland. Born into a respected Irish-Anglo family in 1860, Charles loves his native land and its long-suffering but irrepressible people. As a healer, he travels the countryside dispensing traditional cures while soaking up stories and legends of bygone times--and witnessing the painful, often violent birth of land-reform measures destined to lead to Irish independence.At the age of forty, summoned to Paris to treat his dying countryman--the infamous Oscar Wilde--Charles experiences the fateful moment of his life. In a chance encounter with a beautiful and determined young Englishwoman, eighteen-year-old April Burke, he is instantly and passionately smitten--but callously rejected. Vowing to improve himself, Charles returns to Ireland, where he undertakes the preservation of the great and abandoned estate of Tipperary, in whose shadow he