Murder by Death

Ronan gambles away his family's pub (in his defence, it was a 4 aces hand) to his horrible uncle, who wants to turn it into a tanning salon.  His 6 sisters, rather than seeing it go to Uncle Joe, raffle the pub off in America.  Carlene buys a $20 raffle ticket at an Irish festival in Ohio, and wins.  She moves to Ireland to make a go of running the pub and chaos and romance ensue.

This is pure chick-lit.  Heavy on romance, light on sex, with a lot of humour and some odd pranks thrown into the mix.  I enjoyed it, but it's long; longer than it needed to be and the beginning was a slog; I wasn't necessarily interested in the blow-by-blow of Ronan losing the pub, or Carlene's history of bad luck.  Once past that though the story picked up pace and I thought Ronan's gambling and Carlene's father's OCD added a much needed depth to the story.  The twist at the end was pretty effective too.

If you've a weakness for the Irish (who doesn't?) and are in the mood for a mostly feel-good read that celebrates, first and foremost, the power of friendship and community, you might enjoy this one.