- Hardcover: 502 pages
- Publisher: Delacorte Pr (Sep 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385335121
- ISBN-13: 978-0385335126
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,227,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Tara Road
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
One assumes that Maeve Binchy's fiction--always on the bestseller list--is sold mainly to women: the broader canvas of politics, business and legal matters don't seem to engage her interest. She's at her best in the intimate minutiae of domestic life--hopes and dreams, matters of the heart--and she's well served by her cousin Kate, who narrates her audio books with immense skill and conviction. Tara Road is in Dublin, where Ria has created an exquisite home for her adored husband Danny and her two children. Her kitchen is a warm, convivial meeting place for family and friends, but Danny seems too busy to enjoy it. To coax him back into the family circle, Ria suggests they have another baby, whereupon he confesses that he's in love with a teenage girl whom he's made pregnant, and with whom he intends to live. Realising that she's been living in a fool's paradise, Ria arranges a house exchange with a New Englander whose marriage is also on the rocks: a month in someone else's life should free them both from their misery. But the reality is more complicated, because the women have not been entirely open with each other. Skeletons emerge from cupboards, and while some characters lose out, others rise like phoenixes from the ashes of their former lives. Welcome to Binchy's variegated world. --Betty Tadman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
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.
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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If I want to read a lovely warm, affectionate family book I usually pick up a Maeve Binchy. Tara Road, I think, is one of her best books. It's got love, friendship and passion and on the flipside has cheating husbands, devious best friends and mistresses galore. There is more than one story going on here, the main one is Ria and Danny Lynch and these two are followed throughout their lives in each chapter. But there are so many sub-stories which add to the depth of the main story and keeps the interest up. Ria's mother, sister, best friend, Danny's business partner, not to mention the local restaurateur all have their own stories intertwining. The book then introduces Marilyn in America who has her own problems and on the spur of the moment both Marilyn and Ria decide to do a house swap. This part of the book is very interesting in that it shows up the warm friendly qualities of Ria and the lack of them in Marilyn. Overall this is a very enjoyable read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read the book and fairly enjoyed it but it could've been written in half the pages. Ria, the main character, needed a real good shaking, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen nearly from the beginning..... Although the book is centered around a house-swap - don't believe it, only the last third or so of the book deals with this. The first two-thirds deals with Ria's life from her first job onwards. Sorry all you Binchy fans but she just didn't really do it for me.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A stranger may learn much more about your life in a few weeks than you may know about yourself
11 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
The story of two women when a home swap gives them the space that they need in order to come to grips with what has been going on with their lives and what they could do about it.
Following events from different characters' perspectives gives the reader surprising and fresh insights. The different characters' perspectives allows the reader to put the pieces of the puzzle together and the completed puzzles give the reader new understandings of what has been going on in the lives of these very real characters.
There are many incidents in the book that lead the reader to wonder what they would have done under similar circumstances.
Swapping homes provides such a great context for the characters of the book to put themselves to test. It also gives them the great opportunity to "not be judged by their past" which they really cannot do much about but with their current actions which they are free to chose.
Following events from different characters' perspectives gives the reader surprising and fresh insights. The different characters' perspectives allows the reader to put the pieces of the puzzle together and the completed puzzles give the reader new understandings of what has been going on in the lives of these very real characters.
There are many incidents in the book that lead the reader to wonder what they would have done under similar circumstances.
Swapping homes provides such a great context for the characters of the book to put themselves to test. It also gives them the great opportunity to "not be judged by their past" which they really cannot do much about but with their current actions which they are free to chose.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A simple piece of entertaining storytelling
This is no great shakes from a literary point of view, Binchy has a very limited vocabulary, I lost count of how many things were 'huge' and she has an irritating habit of ending... Read more
Published 9 months ago by smartesthorse
A joy to read
I loved reading this book and its associated titles Scarlet Feather & Quentins. Some characters appear in all three books and this gives a sense of community and reality to the... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Chrissie
Enjoyable
This was a pretty long story with a lot of secondary Characters but it is a fast paced story and the characters are developed really well, I really enjoyed this, a must for Binchy... Read more
Published on 6 May 2010 by L Murphy
A beautiful account of surviving life
When you need it most, someone or something will come along and help you on your way through the trials everyone faces in life. Read more
Published on 11 Feb 2010 by Marie Powell
Sadly, it's just a narrative, about characters with no depth to them
OK, it's an interesting story - though to me it was rather predictable. But honestly, it's no more than a narrative! This happened, that happened. Yawn. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2009 by The man from Marazion
If you have high blood pressure and you`re not supposed to get worked...
- you`ll be safe with this. I suppose this would be classed as `light reading.` Anybody got a match...?
Published on 15 April 2008 by Leeds lass
How Do You Play the Hand You're Dealt?
Tara Road's strength is that you get an unusual degree of character development, both in quantity and quality. Read more
Published on 17 July 2004 by Donald Mitchell
How Do You Play the Hand You're Dealt?
Tara Road's strength is that you get an unusual degree of character development, both in quantity and quality. Read more
Published on 10 July 2004 by Donald Mitchell
How Do You Play the Hand You're Dealt?
Tara Road's strength is that you get an unusual degree of character development, both in quantity and quality. Read more
Published on 8 May 2004 by Donald Mitchell
How Do You Play the Hand You're Dealt?
Tara Road's strength is that you get an unusual degree of character development, both in quantity and quality. Read more
Published on 8 May 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
