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Summary and Reviews of Tara Road by Maeve Binchy

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy

Tara Road

by Maeve Binchy
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (8):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 1, 1999, 502 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2000, 502 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

A moving story rendered with the deft touch of a master artisan - utterly beautiful, hauntingly unforgettable, entirely original, and wholly enjoyable.

With each new book, Maeve Binchy continues a remarkable progression of sales and audience growth, reaching fans of all ages and backgrounds with her matchless wit, warmth, and sheer storytelling magic. Tara Road, her first full-length novel since The Glass Lake, again shows her incomparable understanding of the human heart in the tale of two women, one from Ireland, one from America, who switch lives, and in doing so learn much about each other, as well as much about themselves.

Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.

Drawn into lifestyles vastly differing from their own, at first each resents the news of how well the other is getting on. Ria seems to have become quite a hostess, entertaining half the neighborhood, which at first irritates the reserved and withdrawn Marilyn, a woman who has always guarded her privacy. Marilyn seems to have become bosom friends with Ria's children, as well as with Colm, a handsome restaurateur, whom Ria has begun to miss terribly. At the end of the summer, the women at last meet face-to-face. Having learned a great deal, about themselves and about each other, they find that they have become, firmly and forever, good friends.

A moving story rendered with the deft touch of a master artisan, Tara Road is Maeve Binchy at her very best--utterly beautiful, hauntingly unforgettable, entirely original, and wholly enjoyable.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

The New York Times
A remarkably gifted writer.

The New York Times
A remarkably gifted writer.

The Washington Post
Reading one of Maeve Binchy's novels is like coming home.

USA Today
Tara Road is good storytelling...Binchy's books are big, her boys are backsliders, her heroines are spirited.

Wall Street Journal
Engrossing...hard to put down...a saga of love, sex, money and intrigue.

Wall Street Journal
Engrossing...hard to put down...a saga of love, sex, money and intrigue.

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Read-Alikes

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