As I'm not a big fan of soap opera type shows, I found this book pretty pointless. But, I'm not one to give up easily, so I finished it just so I can get it off my 'to read' list.
If you are looking for a book to take on a camping trip, that could also double for fire starter, this is the book for you.

Great! Year approximately 2000

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. It was lighthearted and vivid, and I liked the characters (even though they were somewhat one-dimensional). It was a good book to sit with in my garden and just lose myself in. However, halfway through, new major characters were introduced, and I found I didn’t want to invest my time in them anymore. I skimmed the rest.

Then I watched the movie, which was quite unimpressive, but at least it started from the middle of the book, which made more sense.

My first Maeve Binchy.

I gave it the old 50 Pages try and that's all I'm giving this book. Nothing happened for those fifty pages. Absolutely nothing. The fortune in your cookie has more emotional impact. Donald Trump's tweets have more narrative. The list of side effects for Humira are more riveting.

I hate giving bad rating BUT THIS BOOK SUCKED A BIG DEAL!!!! Sure anther's writing style was very entertaining and good (and I am giving two stars for that!) but even though book had 670+ pages, it was still rushed.

TBH I hate it because 1). the main character is the one which I hate the most: woman who refused to let her man go even after knowing he is a bastard. I felt sympathetic until I read further.

2) PUBLISHER'S NOTE WAS MISLEADING!!! okay it was suppose to be the story of 2 women who accidentally discovered each other while living miles and miles away from each other. They DID discover each other but after half of the book is over. The word 'friendship' was misleading. they both are jealous of each other until they find what is going on behind the scenes which happens *spoiler alert* in the end.

3) Authors need to STOP PORTRAYING TEENS AS BRATS. sure teen years are not really parents friendly but they aren't THAT BAD!!! My mother has no sense of fashion but that doesn't mean I hate her. Its plain stupid to assume that.

4) The main character is happy because her husband *spoiler alert* losses his child and she thinks he would now come back to her.

5) Author didn't show me as promised by fortune teller, "Entrepreneur Ria Lynch".


Ria's son and her mother and their friend who was a gardener (i forgot his name) were the only characters I loved. Everyone else was confused and messed up including Ria's very own daughter.

Tara Rd

n  I enjoyed this big fat Irish family tale.n

I have a paperback and this is a fat little book at 648 pages. I've had this book on my shelves for a good long time. I don't know if it was its compact but stout size that seemed daunting or the fact that I never could get a satisfactory understand of what this was about enough to press me into reading it. Maybe because there is so much to this book it may be hard to say it all but I hope to give enough facts myself to help prospective readers make a choice. Coming off of the disturbing read prior, this was an Ab Fab choice for next book. It's not without its own high point and low point drama. However it's more relationship fueled, so it's not overwhelming at all.

Tara Road is a long street at the center of a neighborhood in Dublin, Ireland. In the beginning it sort of a has been slightly rundown type of place but through the book we see its revitalization. It even begins to thrive. By the end of the book one character even calls it "Millionaires Row". It's slightly a rags to riches story with this road so mainly at the heart of things the author gave the title its namesake. All of the characters live and work on or at places surrounding Tara Road.

Ria and Danny Lynch met while working together at a real estate agency when they were young. Danny always had big dreams. Ria had dreams of Danny. Danny made the deal of his life helping a shystie real estate seller named Barney McCarthy and fell into some good luck. He was able to not only buy his dream fixer upper on Tara Road but also make it into a glamorous house, marry Ria and start a family. Ria stays home with the children decorating and making house beautiful. Down the street, a friend Colm, also buys into Tara Rd and opens a restaurant. Rosemary, Ria's best friend moves into some luxury apartments rebuilt and owned by Barney McCarthy and Danny Lynch. Ria's mother Nora eventually moves in to a little place near a senior citizens home she volunteers at. Gertie, Ria's troubled friend also owns a laundromat on the street. Everything is busy and bubbling on Tara Rd and Ria's door is always open to everyone. Her kitchen is the focal point of neighborhood society. She always has a something cooking and a pot of something warm to drink on the stove. She's always bustling because she believes this is the happy home the Lynch's have always dreamed of. But life is not always a happy tale.
The second half of the book we find every character and some additional experiencing a type of life they never anticipated. Secrets are revealed. Some characters are taken out of their comfort zone. People realize there is more to the world beyond Tara Rd. In the end it matures them all.

I really did like this book. It was a bit long. Not in a bad way. That always just makes me antsy because there are so many books I want to read. But it did keep my interest. I was glad for the reality check the author brought when things started to change from Shangri la to the real world. Tara Rd would have been a mighty boring place if it continued on in the happy happy vein. So to readers who read this and start to get bored of the sapp, trust me a stirring of the pot does come. I like that analogy of the pot of life. After the stirring, once the ingredients have melded better into the stew of pot world, they do resettle in different spaces but it's better for having been stirred. That would be my sum up of Tara Rd. What was thought to be a good stew is stirred. A few new ingredients were added. Some were taken out for the best. The stew having been better combined is allowed to continue to simmer for best results.

I'll give it 4 stars. I do recommend it. If you need something good but not mentally disrupting. This is it. I'd read other books by this author. Hopefully they are not all so long.

I remember reading this a long while back, one of those books that must have fallen into my hands because I doubt I would have picked it up! (This probably meant it was either a swap in some coffee shop or I was living somewhere where ANYTHING written in English attracted my attention...) But we all know how it is, the book that you normally would have passed over goives you a wink and says, "Try me, I won't bite!", then proceeds to be not all that painful as you'd imagined, and in fact quite good. Maeve Bincky lured me in, much the same way as Marian Keyes. (Oh, those Irishwomen...)

Although this could technically be called a "chick lit" book, it's based on a universal fantasy: what would it be like if I could switch lives with someone? That's what the two women here do, switch families, countries (Ireland and the USA) and much else. (No husband-swapping as the American is separated from hers as the Irishwoman has been replaced by a younger, pregnant girlfriend.) There is a lot of heart here and while I obviously couldn't "identify as a woman", there were other things which touched the chord of living a different life in a different place, and leaving all else behind. So, there, I enjoyed it in spite of any prejudices I might have had!

This...was an absolute waste of my time. When I think of the time I could've spent studying, there's a sense of emptiness in me that Maeve Binchy has stolen a day or two of my life that I will never get back. No, no...it's more than that...it's like a sense of betrayal even. Maeve was supposed to be funny. She was supposed to be funny and witty, like she was when she wrote Aches and Pains. This is one of the reasons one should never go reading a book expecting anything. In retrospect, I thought that Tara Road would be about, I don’t know…strangers who keep meeting each other on the road and have a chat about their everyday life and maybe the story could expand to some sort of adventure/mystery thing, I don’t know. Here’s what Tara Road is actually about:

Woman from poor family background meets man from poor family background. Man has a dream to buy the house he’s currently boarding and transform it. The woman is Ria and the man, Dan, known for most of the book as Danny Lynch, and right from the start Maeve wants you to be a little wary of him. Why else would she give him the name “Lynch”? It wouldn’t make sense. She made this character out to be an all-charming, handsome, sociable, loving, wily, and extremely likable man with ambition, and off she goes and names him “Lynch”.

Back to the story: By some form of twisted luck and through Dan’s craftiness, they get the house, and go on to fill it with wonderful treasures blahblah. Ria is pregnant, Danny is irresistibly handsome , and because he’s helping his adulterous new boss and boss’ mistress, he’s not there for the birth of his first child. Also, at the time, some alcoholic skanky girl was trying to seduce him. Since he didn’t fall for anything, we assume he’s ever loyal. Then it goes on to say Danny has affairs. Danny ends affairs. Ria is oblivious. Ria has a friend Gertie who married an abusive alcoholic. Ria’s mother is the town gossip, and her sister is a sad scrooge. Boohoo. Ria has another friend Rosemary who nobody appears to like even though, and maybe even because, she’s successful and hot. Gertie cleans her friend's houses for her husband’s drinking money. Ria has another baby, baby grows up. Ria’s daughter accidentally sees Rosemary having sex, traumatized for life. Rosemary has funky feelings for a man named Colm (who owns a restaurant, is oddly protective of his sister, and grows his vege behind Ria’s house on Tara Road). Colm is always helpful, and that's about the only use for him in the story.

Ria wants a third baby. She approaches Danny, and finds out he’s got another girl pregnant. Cries, cries, begs him to come back. Children are heartbroken. Ria spies on preggo and her mom, and finds out the dear mom is her age. Awkward.

There’s some BS about a fortuneteller, but that isn’t in any way relevant to the story. In fact, a good chunk of the book is just Maeve Binchy’s way of telling trees and environmental activists that they can sod off because barring any divine intervention she’s going to ramble on and on unnecessarily about characters that I personally can’t relate to and a story that should have taken a whole lot less than 200 pages to flesh out. One consolation, Hallelujah, is that she filled the pages with whole paragraphs of words instead of the name of each passing month.

And lo and behold, was I shocked when I came to chapter 4. I hadn’t realized there’d been any chapters in this never-ending jumble of words and more words, let alone reached chapter 4. So, just for this review, I flipped back and hah…there’s chapter 1, and there’s chapter 4, with nothing between or after. I’m surprised she put a pause there at all. I suppose it’s to indicate a passage of time. Either that, or she wanted to bring it to my attention I’d hit page 200, and there’d be 288 pages of fun left to go. FM.

So on and on I did read, and suddenly, this American woman Marilyn is literally thrown in out of nowhere, looking to do a house exchange. And then I thought: Shit. It would’ve been so much more interesting as a book had I been introduced to Marilyn at roughly the same point as Ria. It wouldn’t have been hard to do really… to stuff her into that 200 pages and take a bit out of Ria’s story. Maeve Binchy enjoys weaving out of other characters’ lives around Ireland like a drunk driver. I expected to be ambushed with another 200-page introduction to the life of Marilyn, but fortunately, Maeve cannot stay away from Ria, sweet, weak, wonderful chef, ever loving mother, doting wife, innocent, tolerant, moral Ria. Flawless in all ways but her blindness to any living souls’ faults.

Eventually, the house exchange begins, and the two women never meet. Ria is all about being around people, whereas Marilyn is a recluse. Ria finds herself a new bunch of friends, and Marilyn is set up by Ria to be ambushed by her own friends and family. Eventually as things go, they fit in, and grow in ways they never had to and heal. One can see a mile away that Marilyn is running from something, and it’s obvious to everyone, if not Ria, that Marilyn lost her son Dale.

To save the trouble of having to endure 200 pages of this, the gist is:
1)tRia attracts the attention of Marilyn’s brother-in-law. Learns how to email. Learns about the true story behind Dale’s death that is totally redundant.
2)tRia’s children—Annie and Brian—help Marilyn get over the loss of her son.
3)tRia’s children stay with her in USA for the second month of her stay. Two boys rival for Annie’s attention, one of whom is Gertie’s (alcoholic’s wife) nephew.
4)tMarilyn helps Cobb’s sister (who is revealed to be a heroin addict, eventually clearing all absurd accusations that they committed incest) to break the addiction
5)tMarilyn walks in on Rosemary cheating with Danny Lynch. She uses this to blackmail Rosemary into helping Ria with her new career in the food-export business.
6)tDanny and his adulterous boss, Barney McCarthy, suffer major losses in business and nearly go bankrupt. They have to sell Tara Road
7)tDanny Lynch visits Ria in the US of A to tell her this and ends up sleeping with her.
8)tDanny’s mistress loses the baby. Danny does not go back to Ria.
9)tBarney McCarthy’s wife saves them all from the brink of bankruptcy, on several conditions, one of which includes leaving his mistress.
10)tGertie’s abusive alcoholic of a husband dies. Everyone shows up at his funeral. Gertie rewrites history to say he was the best husband in the whole world.
11)tFortuneteller disappears. All her predictions were accurate. Whoopie for her.

All in all, this is a damn gossipy book. I wasn’t bored reading it, and that’s about as high a praise that can be heaped on this colossal waste of time. I found no satisfaction at all from reading it. I wouldn’t even call it a beach-read, because it’s just too full of negativity. But perhaps I don’t enjoy it because it wasn’t intended for my age group, but that’s hardly an excuse is it? There are books people would enjoy at age 60 just as much as they would if they were 16. Oh well, if I feel like wasting another day of my life I’ll pick it up again at age 40 maybe, and perhaps then, I would appreciate the so-called “light-hearted” cynicism/realism Cow Poo. I sincerely hope not.

I am a HUGE Maeve Binchy fan. I've read everything she's written at least three times...except this book. Until now I had only read this one a single time; I decided to try it again to see if a few years and additional life experience made me like it any more.

Nope. If anything it was even worse.

Binchy's works can be loosely divided into three periods--the early stuff set in mid-20th Century Ireland, the middle stuff set in modernizing Ireland, the later "Tara/St.Jarleth's" stuff. I prefer the early books or the later ones, generally.

In many ways I think perhaps this novel was written during a rough patch in her life because while it has many of the trademark Binchy grace notes it lacks the compelling story found in almost every other one of her novels.

This book is all about how one woman's life is spoiled by betrayal. Woohoo!!! Fun!!!!

Every character has a maudlin, bleak sort of life. Now in every other Binchy book bad things happen but the undercurrent of hopefulness buoys the narrative. There is no hopefulness in this novel. I know she stopped touring with her work because of illness not long after this book. I suspect this was written during a particularly rough patch with her arthritis. It feels like a book born of pain.

I'm amused that out of all the Binchy works to choose from THIS became an Oprah pick. I maintain that Oprah always picked books that were sensationalist like her show was early on. This book with its abusiveness and betrayal fits right in.

So no. Now that I've reread _Tara Road_ I don't like it any more than before. In fact, I reckon I like it even less this time around.

If I could, I would give it a 3.5 stars. I liked some of the themes presented in this book: abuse, friendship, commitment, love, children. I did not like the soap opera type of story. My husband asked what I was reading and I told him confidently that it would fit right in as a Lifetime movie. I don't normally read that type of literature (or watch Lifetime movies, well, except perhaps at Christmastime!). I was drawn, however, to Binchy's writing. She writes very well and the story lines are complex enough to keep you reading. I enjoyed the story but didn't like the "ignorance is bliss" toward the end of the novel. I think she represented Ireland well and illustrated comedic and tragic irony throughout the thoughts of Ria vs. her actual life. Her writing reminds me of Anne Rivers Siddons - very good writers, good characterization, interesting stories with some thematic elements, usually wrapped in a nice, romantic bow with closure -- nothing wrong with that. There isn't much depth, though, to make one think a la E. Annie Proulx "The Shipping News". Good, relatively lighthearted fare.

A primeira coisa que digo quando termino um livro excecionalmente longo é: Finalmente! Por melhor que seja, tantas páginas acabam por cansar e fartar um pouco, ainda mais quando os acontecimentos são parcos em excitação como acontece com este "Uma Casa na Irlanda" onde se assiste mais ao dia a dia de uma dona de casa, os problemas domésticos, com filhos, com marido, com uma casa grande, etc...

A sinopse fala apenas numa troca de casas entre 2 pessoas, uma irlandesa e uma americana e, com essa ideia em mente, até estava ansiosa por ler, acho que é uma ideia bastante interessante, ainda mais porque vi o filme "O Amor Não Tira Férias" que me encantou e em que ocorre também uma troca de casas.

"Uma Casa na Irlanda" é um livro longo; só mais ou menos a meio do livro é que se fala na tal troca de casas; até lá é uma descrição da vida de Ria, com um resumo rápido, felizmente, da sua juventude e depois é que começa o enredo desde que conhece Danny, levando ao seu casamento e compra da casa de Tara Road. São anos e anos que se passam e, apesar de se ler bem, fica a questão: "para que serve isto?"

Após a troca de casas propriamente dita, esperava que a leitura ganhasse um novo fôlego; apesar de ter havido momentos bons, também houve outros em que fiquei profundamente dececionada com os personagens e daí que estava ansiosa por acabar este livro.

Não é que não valha a pena, mas se alguém parte para a leitura à espera de grandes momentos devido à troca de casas, é melhor refrear a excitação.

I know that Maeve Binchy has been writing for a long time but I never read her novels. I was really missing out on some wonderful reading!! This book has wonderful characters that I grew to really care about in both a negative and a positive fashion and the story of their life situations and resolutions carried me right along. I was so immersed that I forgot the time completely! I fully intend to read this author's other novels and understand now why her fans were especially sad at her demise.