Book Review Tuesday - Life Before Us - #BRT
Who here has read books by the late Maeve Binchy? I love everything she’d ever written - lovely, warm Irish stories like Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle, Scarlet Feather. Binchy died in 2012, alas, but there’s an Irish writer who’s just as wonderful, if not better.
Meet Roisin (“Ro-SHEEN”) Meaney, based in Limerick. She’s written 20 novels, all of them worth your time, in my humble opinion. Her newest is called Life Before Us, and it’s exactly what you should be reading!
In Life Before Us, we meet George Murphy, a 34-year-old schoolteacher with a kind heart and an 11-year-old daughter named Suzi (adorable and precocious) from his now-ended marriage to Claire. George is a gentle and caring person who devotes extra time to his sixth-grade students. His widowed mother has recently moved out of the family home (where George returned after his divorce) and is now living with John.
Alice O'Mahoney is a receptionist in a dentist's office in Dublin, and is involved with a man named Chris, who is far too secretive to be trusted. Except Alice ignores the red flags and is preparing a getaway with him, until Chris's wife (!!!) calls her at work to let her know that Alice has been a fool. Well, yes, but what about Chris? Anyway, how humiliating! Alice decides to return to her hometown of Naas, Ireland, only to find that her old friends have moved on with their lives. She moves in temporarily with her aunt Kate, who runs an Italian restaurant, and helps out at the restaurant, delivers local eggs for Kate (who has hens, of course), and manages to snag a gig writing a "kindness column" for the local newspaper.
Throughout the book, Alice's path will cross with George's path numerous times, but they never meet in person (well, they do, but only you, the reader, knows it). If it's destiny that these two meet, it takes some time. And that's what is so gorgeous about this novel - and about Meaney's writing in particular - she weaves these moments, phrases, glances, all together so that by the time you're almost finished with the book (and trust me, you don't want it to end), there is a stunning tapestry of a tale.
I adored this book - five big beautiful stars. If you enjoyed reading this review, I encourage you to buy or download her book - and you'll be hooked, too.
If you can't find Roisin Meaney's books locally, then by all means go here https://tinyurl.com/2ttjndcr and you'll find them all.