This book weaves together the many stories that comprise the life of Cuchulain and the other warriors of the Red Branch. Llywelyn, as usual, shows great skill in telling this story, as well as injecting the book with a feel of what Ireland was like during this long ago time.

I love this book, I read it as a beginning of a diversity search... We have all this diverse cultural stuff thrown at us in the workplace in this age of political correctness, so I read some of Llywelyn's novels, to see where my family comes from. Boy did I get a better understanding of my wife! All that aside, this is a fascinating telling of one of Celtic Mythologies most exciting tales.

This is the second Llywelyn book i've read, I read 'Druids' several years ago. I enjoyed Druids very much, so I was excited to start reading Red Branch. Unfortunately my excitement dwindled quickly.

I'm not saying that it's a bad book. For me it has many problems. Her writting style is simplistic, in between moments of attempted flash and bold description that leaves me cringing. It took me almost the first half of the book to warm up to the main character, Cuchulain, and I couldn't help but thinking he was such a 'Mary Sue' character; although this is a book that retells mythic heroic deeds, so that's not such a bad thing ultimately. It was still difficult for me to get over just how perfect he was.

Llywelyn was also incapable of making me believe in the depth of the world. The world in which she set her characters was trite. Again, I know this is a fantasy based novel retelling well known cultural myth, but at no time during reading this book did I feel immersed in its universe.

I also found myself reeling when from one paragraph to the next, quickly and without warning, she changed the time and sometimes place of the story. Most authors let their readers know when hours lapse between paragraphs in a pleasant way rather than just shoving it down your throat.

As I said it's not all negative, though. Being a heroic, mythic adventure tale the characters and situations were often very interesting. I enjoyed reading about these legends of which I had no previous experience. I kept threatening to stop reading it, but it held enough fun and interesting moments to keep me reading. I'm not sure this book deserved the almost 500 paperback pages it is made up of. It seems better suited as a series of character events told throgh a series of short stories, rather than a novel.

I absolutely loved this book. Before picking it up I knew absolutely nothing about the story of Cuchulain, the legendary Hound of Ulster. I found myself enthralled by the story, the characters, the myth, and the setting of this novel from page one. This was the second of Ms. Llywelyn's novels that I'd read -- Lion of Ireland being the first -- and I think it's ranks as one of her best. By the end of the novel, even though you know that it cannot end well, you've become invested in the characters and it's sad when it finally ends. The novel has a lot to say about love and war, what motivates men (and women), and a curious historical tie-in to the modern troubles of Ireland. A great read for anyone interested in ancient Ireland's legendary past.

Re-telling of the tales of the mythical Irish hero Cuchulain. Historical fiction, except its myths not history being re-wrote. This book kept me captivated from beginning to end, I don't know if I've ever got through a 500 page book as fast I got through this one.