A Hard Gemlike Flame: ArtPlus Ltd. (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478128236)

Jim Wills, author of A Hard Gemlike Flame, the fourth of the Kavanagh stories, and the three other chronologically arranged titles in the Kavanagh saga: A Few Men Faithful I, Philly MC II, and Shooter in a Plague YearIII, has had careers as varied as the novels he writes. He has been a motorcycle mechanic, academic, hard rock miner, book editor, commercial writer, baker and an author. His lifelong interest in Irish history and literature, with all their triumphs and failures, forms the bedrock for these novels. Each one stands on its own, but they are more rewarding read as a continuous history of the Kavanagh family, in Ireland, in North America, from 1916 to 2020. His fascination with dialect, street vocabulary, and musical lyrics that define a place, a culture, and a time are evident throughout. He lives in rural Ontario with his partner, Wendy Carlson and, betimes, Wendy's daughter, Kate Amies. Other works by the same author include Tools Are Made, Born Are Hands: Baking True Artisan Breads in a Wood Fired Oven. Marc Schuster on A Few Men Faithful: A Kavanagh Story I: "The prose throughout is clear and reminiscent of Hemingway ...clear writing and strong characters make this a novel (and, presumably, series) worth reading....." Small Press Reviews, September 9, 2011 (www.smallpressreviews.wordpress.com)