At the same time, the Connecticut caller, Marilyn Vine, has her own lessons to learn when she and Ria swap houses for the summer.

Yet after our supposedly happy housewife and mother of two is confronted by some inexorable home truths, a chance phone call from America will change her life, forcing her to discard her illusions about men, women, and marriage and start all over again. There is even an all-knowing fortune teller who early on hints that Ria will travel and start a successful business-two things she knows are definitely not in the offing. Maeve Binchy has long proved herself a secure hand at multiple story lines, and over the course of 500 satisfying pages she focuses on Ria her best friend, Rosemary Ryan, a beautiful, endlessly selfish career woman Gertie, the battered wife of a drunkard and several other intriguing women, each of whom has secrets not to be shared. Danny Lynch from the broken-down cottage in the back of beyond and Ria Johnson from the corner house in the big, shabby estate were not only living like gentry in a big Tara Road mansion, they were actually debating what style of dining table to buy.' But for its various inhabitants, the street is to become a boulevard of dreams-some broken, others created anew. In 1982, property speculation is beginning to be a big, big thing in Dublin-and their street is very much in an up-and-coming part of town.

Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1999: Against all odds, two newlyweds manage to buy the house of their dreams.

Tara road novel