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Ria seems to have become quite a hostess, entertaining half the neighborhood, which at first irritates the reserved and withdrawn Marilyn, a woman who has always guarded her privacy.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.
Author: Maeve Binchy
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Dell
Published: 05/29/2007
Pages: 656
Weight: 1.2lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.20w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9780385341813
Audience: Young Adult
Accelerated Reader:Reading Level: 4.8
Point Value: 27
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 32263 / Tara Road
About the AuthorMaeve Binchy was born and educated in Dublin. She is the bestselling author of
The Return Journey, Evening Class, This Year It Will Be Different, and
The Glass Lakes. She has written two plays and a teleplay that won three awards at the Prague Film Festival. She has been writing for The Irish Times since 1969 and lives with her husband, writer and broadcaster Gordon Snell, in Dublin.