Tara Road

Unlike other Binchy novels, this book is set in the 1980s and 1990s: Binchy herself comments that she was beginning to feel that her fifties and sixties settings were getting too dated. She makes a very good job of the transition: there is a real contemporary feel to this book. I grew up in Dublin in the period in question: I know!The characters, like other Binchy novels, are very well developed. Binchy has a real sense of 'friendship' as well as love and life after the supposedly happy-ever-after of the wedding. Ria's marriage to Danny, their purchase of the dream house and their life together is brilliantly portrayed.Then Danny announces he's leaving Ria, and her life falls apart....This introduces the house-swap part of the plot, and this is the real novelty for Binchy. Ria changes places with Marilyn for the summer, which leads to both women coming to a greater understanding of herself, and of the factors which led the other's life to fall apart. Some of these passages are excellent.I notice some reviewers here complain when Binchy fails to get US dialogue correct; fair enough. I wonder why some of these same reviewers think it's not important when US writers make similar mistakes - and sometimes much worse ones - with British or Irish vocabulary? But this is an aside.I did feel that there was an unfinished feel to the book. Although Binchy by no means always goes for the happy ending typical of so many lightweight romances, she does at least tend to tie up her loose ends. This, for me, is why the book gets four stars instead of five: I needed another fifty pages or so to finish off the story properly.I'm now looking forward to Binchy's next book, which, sadly, she's already announced will be her last.

"Tara Road" is one of the most enjoyable book I have read. It is the story of the inner growth of two women: Ria & Maryline. Ria is an Irish woman who lives in Tara Road (a residential area in Dublin) with her husband,Danny, and two children. Their marriage is very happy until she discovers that he's going to have a baby with his new teenager girlfriend. Maryline is an American woman who wants to escape from her house and her husband because they remind her of the recent death of herson. Thanks to a chance phone call these two women decide to swap their houses for two months. It is through this experience that they both grow and becone more mature and stronger than before because in this period they share friends, habits and also learn awful secrets about each other. However, they both decide not to reveal them in order not to wrek each other's hopes.It is very easy for a foreigner student of English to read this book because the language is everyday and fluent. There are many dialogues which let the reader identify with the characters. So I strongly advise everybody to read it!

I just finished this book last night and loved it. I loved the relationships, they felt very real to me, not sugar-coated. I could not put this book down and am sad that it is over.

I am still reading this book and enjoy it more every time I turn a page. Her characters seem true to life and not the "make believe" people in so many modern books. The fact that she can make you feel a part of her books is, to my way of thinking, the mark of a truly good writer. I have read every book she has written and consider her right up there with Rosamunde Pilcher -- another of my favorites.

I've been a Maeve Binchy fan since she wrote Circle of Friends, but she has, admittedly, been a little too romantic for my taste on some rare occasions...but THIS is an excellently written book. I don't want to go into detail, but trust me--it'll keep you enthralled. Maeve has a way of twisting her stories to the degree in which even the reader is perplexed (who WAS in the summer house with Rosemary when Annie stumbled across them? ) For those of you that are new to Maeve Binchy, try reading Circle of Friends first...You'll be hooked!