This could well be one of my favourite December/Christmas fiction books! Set in Faha, Ireland (as was a previous book by Williams) this is the account of some days in December leading up to Christmas, and the unexpected arrival of a tiny child. The impact of this arrival on the lives of Dr Jack Troy and his daughter is extraordinary and one wonders if the good doctor will even commit a crime in order to help his eldest daughter.

The writing is lyrical; the characters are so real that I missed them after I finished the book; and even though it is set in the early 1960's, and in a part of Ireland I have never visited, it all became very real and I found myself emotionally involved.

Some of the descriptive writing is poetical -

‘With each moment, the sky changed. In one, as Jude ran, the stars were bumping off a black-blue screen. In the next, stars had been taken in, the whole of the east towards Limerick a commotion of charcoal, taupe and grey that swirled in mingle, as though a liquid light had been poured into a darker substance and you could not say if night or day would emerge. All lending substance to those who since before Christ had watched the December sky for portents.’

There are some allegorical themes (an unexpected baby at Christmas and an unmarried virgin mother, for instance) and some deep questions - how far would or should a father go for his child? How much should one conform to the social niceties and morales of one's time?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poetic and deeply moving book. Many thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.