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Product Description
From Library Journal
Stories from the beloved Irish author.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
A collection of Christmas-centered feel-good tales about love and family snarls in the season of comfort and joy. All are rendered in Binchy's popular unglossed style (The Glass Lake, 1995, etc.), and set in England, Ireland, and Australia. Some of the 15 tales have to do with unwise, innocent women carrying torches for the married lovers who take them for granted. Most eventually find the strength to douse the torch they've been carrying and let their own light shine--one is helped along by the plight of a loveless teenager and a sad gambler who's lost all. There are also abrasive relationships with children. In ``The First Step of Christmas,'' a resentful, neglected stepdaughter is lured home by a simple holiday tradition. Two single men with wayward adult children find mutual support and insight in ``A Typical Irish Christmas,'' and two singles in their 50s fly to Australia to meet their children's spouses for the first time--and discover each other along the way. Included as well are amusing tales about ditsy-to-just-plain-awful grannies. In ``A Season of Fuss,'' adult children foolishly try to curb their mother's towering nervous flights of preparation for the holidays. In ``The Best Inn in Town,'' two crazy grandmothers--one with ``a lip that curled all on its own,'' the other possessing ``a tinkling laugh that would freeze the blood''--are about to be dumped in a local inn. But the grandchildren, used to ``the natural order of things'' at Christmastime, have a better idea. There are marital reconciliations, too, and, in the sourly amusing title story, a long-suffering housewife, a good old reliable preparer and supplier of Christmas jollity, plans a surprise for her dense family that will resonate far beyond Christmas. In all, an appropriate gift for the casual reader--a bit of sentimentality and a touch of romance, along with humor and hopeful turns to treat those with cases of the holiday blues. (Literary Guild featured alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Jenny and David gave wonderful Christmas parties. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Jenny and David gave wonderful Christmas parties. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read it over each holiday season....,
By A Customer
This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book the year it came out, and was slightly disappointed in the dismal tone some of the stories begin with. But Binchy is at her finest with characters that are full of flaws and concerns just like all of us. I have read it again and each year the characters become closer to me and I appreciate her writing more fully. Not heartwarming holiday faire, but insightful. Quietly thought provoking. Details make it rich. Thanks Maeve.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Year it will be Different,
By smartnurse123 (Slidell, LA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)
I recommend that you sit down by the fireplace or Christmas tree and read this book during the Holidays. It will make you feel great inside. The stories are short and heart-warming to the soul.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tales of less-than-perfect Christmases,
By
This review is from: This Year It Will Be Different (Mass Market Paperback)
In her novels, Binchy frequently addresses some of the more tragic aspects of life with humor and grace, and she does the same in this collection of stories. Each tale takes place at Christmastime, but there is little sentitmentality here. Instead, Binchy offers us a peek into the more trying aspects of the holidays: the teenager who captures all of her family's flaws on film, the young woman who realizes that her affair with a married man isn't quite as wonderful as she had been telling herself, the happily married woman who struggles with her rebellious stepdaughter, the wife and mother who is tired of having the entire responsibility for the holidays fall on her shoulders, the group of crotched-y nursing residents who have no families to go to on Christmas day, etc. Although these are not exactly "feel-good" stories, many incorporate an aspect of triumph. This book is likely to be appreciated by anyone who has ever strived for the "perfect" Christmas and has fallen short.
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