Irish Fiction Month Guest Review: Maeve Binchy - The Return Journey

Reviewed by Ceri Kehoe
 

In this extraordinary collection of stories, the world-wide bestselling author of Evening Class once again reveals her incomparable understanding of matters of the heart. In The Return Journey, Maeve Binchy creates powerful compelling stories of love, loss, revelation, and reconciliation. A secretary's silent passion for her boss meets the acid test on a business trip; a man and a woman's mutual disdain at first sight shows how deceptive appearances can be; an insecure wife clings to the illusion of order, only to discover chaos at the hands of a house-sitter who opens the wrong doors; a pair of star-crossed travelers pick up each other's bags, and then learn when you unlock a stranger's suitcase, you enter a stranger's life. These and many more poignant, ironic, often humorous stories - unforgettable slices of life -make up The Return Journey, a spellbinding trip into the human heart. 

This collection of gems from famous Irish Author Maeve Binchey are themed as the title suggests. They're based around holidays, travels but more than that they are based on personal journeys, what the characters discover about themselves.

I'm not a fan of short stories to be honest, simply for the reason that they're too short for me but this book of stories was a surprise. I liked that no matter how short they were I really got a sense of the characters personality. It's always easy for a short story to miss this kind of detail out but Maeve managed to delve quite deeply.

The stories included a mother and daughter's letters to each other over a number of months. A man and a woman who got their suitcases mixed up at the airport. The four girls on a holiday to Greece.

I think what I liked about this book so much is we're suffering from cold weather at the moment with no end in sight and this book featuring airports, holidays and beaches really gives me something to look forward to, if we ever have a summer of course!

It's a nice book to read in one or something to flick back and fore too.