House Swapping Made Easy (Tara Road - Maeve Binchy)

Member Name: bandoo

Product:	Tara Road - Maeve Binchy
Date:	14/03/01 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Intricate plot that is unputdownable

Disadvantages: It can be unputdownable

When you enjoy a particular writer's work you start to look forward to their new releases. When this book came out I was sure that it would be a worthy read and it didn't fail to please.

The story starts with Ria and her family including her charming husband Danny Lynch. Ria is the homely wife who some call pretty but never beautiful. Her best friend however, can have any man because she is just so striking as well as being a successful business woman. There are a variety of other background characters such as Gertie who cleans Ria's house so that she can provide her husband with drinking money. Colm who owns the local restaurant and uses Ria's garden for growing his vegetables and Barney McCarthy, Danny's dodgy associate who has been having a long term affair.

As is usual with Maeve Binchy all these characters have great depth and interact with each other on a regular basis. They all seem to be living a wonderfully happy life. Then one day, out of the blue, Danny tells Ria that he is leaving her for a slip of a girl that he has got pregnant !

Ria discovers that there are also financial worries that have been kept hidden from her and through a chance phone call from an American woman, she decides to opt for a house exchange. The American, Marilyn, is used to privacy and peace, her neighbours are not encouraged to intrude. Ria has enough visitors to be classed a railway station in her own right. Everybody knows each other's business in Tara Road. These two women swap houses and friends for two months with some very interesting consequences.

If you want to know the outcome you will have to read the book. Don't you just hate it when someone tells you the ending !!

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