Dear Mrs. Flavey:

My daughter bought your book as a gift for me, which you kindly signed. Thank you so much! She is Maggie Rooney, Liam’s wife.At any rate, I am in the first half of your book and am loving every word. I vowed I will not gallop through it, but savor every morsel.

I too have Irish grandparents, but oddly, my Galwegian grandmother never liked to talk about “home”, my Cork grandfather talked nonstop. He at one time begged my mother to let me go with him to Cork, back in the days when travel by ship was the only way to get there. My mother would not let me accompany him because “she can’t swim.” Daft or what?

I have since visited Ireland twice; for one month while Maggie and Liam lived in Ballymartin, and earlier on my own to travel in Western Ireland to find my great-grandparents graves (was not successful at that time) I will go again as I do have friends (nuns) there to visit as well.

Thank you again for signing The Yellow House for me, and for writing it. You certainly have the Irish gift for storytelling.

Sincerely, Mary Schneider