Ireland seems to have a disproportionate share of great writers. I joke that they must have superior English and writing classes over there because several of my favorite authors are Irish. And now I just found another.

Niall Williams has written other books before, but TIME OF THE CHILD, his latest, is my first. The story is about the people who live in a small town in Ireland during the 1960s. Apparently, Williams wrote an earlier book about this same town, so this is a return.

In TIME OF THE CHILD, the town's doctor, a widower, lives with his oldest daughter, Ronnie. When they take in a baby that someone finds, Ronnie ends up falling in love with the child. But neither Ireland nor the Catholic Church there will allow a single mother to adopt a child. So what to do?

Normally, I dislike writing style that goes on and on about details that do not seem to push the story forward. Yet Williams does that, and I love it. And his sentences are long, too. But none of this feels unnecessary.

So you may want to read an excerpt before you buy TIME OF THE CHILD. But, truly, this is a five-star read.