While our book club agreed that this book was not a very uplifting book, we also agreed that it is worth the time. Our book club was lucky enough to be able to speak with Patricia Falvey about the book, which gave us all a new light. She explained her background and her inspiration for the book. Many of the stories in the book are stories told to her by friends and family. This is Ms. Falvey's second book based in Northern Ireland, with a third in the works. She wanted to create stories around large events in Northern Ireland (such as WWII in this book), that centered around strong female characters. I must agree that she accomplished this with the Linen Queen.

Our group all agreed that this was a good read. In my personal opinion, I thought it was a little slow for the first half. One member actually said it was kind of like "Groundhog Day" for a while. But once you get past the repetitiveness of the story, it gets really good. The second half of the book is much better and keeps you guessing until the end!

Our group enjoyed this book overall. We agreed that the main character was not that likeable, but that wasn't a huge problem for anyone reading the book. We had a good discussion about some of the decisions that she made throughout the course of the book and why she made those decisions.

This was a good story about a piece of history that I knew nothing about. I loved the story of the main character of the book and how the author tied it into a present day orphan experience.