-
See Our Best Book
Club Books of 2026!
Broken Irish is a passionately written novel about revenge, redemption, and alcoholism. It's a story driven by character, community, and coincidence set in south Boston in the late 1990s, a time when even the local parish church is party to a scandal about to unravel. With tight control and a powerful narrative drive, Edward J. Delaney's Broken Irish offers a vantage point from which to view the sad workings of an entire deteriorating society.
"Starred Review. There's nary a blue sky in sight in Delaney's world, but readers will be captivated." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Delaney keeps all of the incipient tragedy beautifully and heartbreakingly balanced through artful plotting and an unadorned but graceful prose style." - Kirkus Reviews
"[Delaney's] characters are not merely vehicles for ideas, but rather, fully realized, familiar people, whose failures are heartbreakingly authentic." - Boston.com
"Epic in its scope but relentlessly compelling in its storytelling - not a common combination - Broken Irish is a splendidly readable and richly textured novel. Edward J. Delaney is an enormously gifted writer. - Robert Olen Butler
"In Edward J. Delaney's South Boston little is lost, nothing forgotten. Old sins, old wounds haunt his characters, young and old, and reverberate throughout his wonderfully complicated plot. Broken Irish is an enthralling, satisfying novel." - Margot Livesey
This information about Broken Irish was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward J. Delaney is the winner of a 2008 Literary Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 2005 PEN/Winship Award for Fiction and a past winner of an O.Henry Prize for short story writing. Among other works, Delaney co-authored Born to Play by Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. Visit him online at: www.edwardjdelaney.com.
The Sister's Curse
by Nicola Solvinic
The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes
by Chanel Cleeton
The Vanishing Place
by Zoë Rankin
 (1).gif)
Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
