Review: Dirty Irish

Dirty Irish by Magan Vernon
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 51%.

So, this series is based the premise that in this day and age a father can leave his multi-million euro pub and whisky business to his three sons on the proviso that they must each be married within six months (and stay together for at least six months), otherwise the business will be offered to the highest bidder by the board. I liked the first one, I thought it was sweet, but I summed up my feelings on the second book as follows:

I really struggle to get my head around this series. The men are too young to be running a multi-million euro business and the board are all too old and cliched. The big misunderstanding between Grace and Jack I just can't get my head around at all. I don't understand why he was angry/upset. Overall, everyone felt like a caricature.

Unfortunately the decline continues with this the third book which features Sean the rugby-playing brother. I think if you live in a country which doesn't play rugby you may enjoy this more, however to an Englishwoman (who doesn't particularly even like rugby or understand the rules so the bar is set quite low) the staggering lack of basic understanding of rugby is painful. This reads like someone once told Magan Vernon about rugby in a pub and she has used what she can remember in a book. So Sean wants a contract to play for the All Blacks, something he's been working for since he was 14 years old. Sorry to break it to you Sean but unless you change your nationality you won't ever play for the All Blacks. Secondly, the All Blacks isn't a league team its the national rugby team of New Zealand so after changing nationality Sean would need to play for another rugby team (say the one he already plays for) and wait to be called up by the national squad. He'd have been better off wishing to play for Ireland. Then she tries to make a rugby allusion and refers to a "flaker" whereas the rugby position is "flanker".

Second, while I enjoyed the lack of brogue in the first book that is not the case in this book. Basically I get the feeling that Magan Vernon knows a few Irish phrases (eg mo gra) and a couple of Irishisms (like "feck") which she intersperses with standard English to make Sean seem Irish.

Third, Magan just doesn't understand the geography. She has Sean referring to his agent as having a British accent. Any Irishman can detect an English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland accent - there is no such thing as a British accent to someone living in the British Isles, it would be like someone from California talking about someone having an American accent.

Fourth, she uses British slang wrongly. In one scene Sean asks a girl if she is "knackered", that means tired not drunk Magan Vernon.

Finally, I felt that every chapter ended exactly the same way, Sean's assistant Leah saying she's never laughed so much with a man before but this can't be anything more, she's just there to help Sean find a wife.

Overall, I found the lack of basic research/checking of facts to be off-putting and the plot was a rinse-and-repeat of the previous two books and I just couldn't be bothered to read the rest of the book.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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