Tom Ryan is the oldest of five Irish Catholic children. Through his eyes, the story of his younger brother, Harry, unfolds: "Growing up, Harry was always the shining star of the family. He was the one you'd name if you were trying to think of kids who were holy, and the one I'd list as a brown-nosing little punk who deserved to get beat up on the playground for making it hard on the rest of us. He was the one God, and Grandma Ryan, had called to the priesthood." But Harry took a different path and chose not to enter the seminary, and eventually, not to be a Catholic. When he left for college he left for good. "Not that I cared, but for four years, Harry never came home. No one spoke of him at the dinner table or wondered aloud how he was doing or why he had changed. His picture disappeared from the mantle. It was as if he had ceased to exist, had never existed, that the shining star had been but a passing comet lost in time and memory. It hurt Mom and Dad a lot." It's Christmas 1972, Harry's senior year, and the Ryan family has gathered for the holiday, all except Harry...
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Read the sequel! "A Cape May Diamond," the sequel to "Four Years from Home" is out on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon. It is a story of life, love, and a journey of a thousand years, and is a must-read for those who want to know what really happened to Tom Ryan.
