Orion £7.99 (400pp) (free p&p) from 0870 079 8897

This Year It Will Be Different, By Maeve Binchy

Reviewed by Emma Hagestadt

Friday 21 November 2008

If you have never sampled Binchy, this volume of short stories is a good introduction to the easy-going charms of Ireland's most practised storyteller. Set around the Christmas holidays, these neatly plotted tales of festive fall-out offer the private miseries of jilted brides, erring husbands and demanding children.

While predictable on the the surface, Binchy's stories conceal a prick of spite. In the title story, a middle-aged mother, lit up by "hot" whiskeys, refuses to stuff the turkey; in "The Civilised Christmas", an insecure second wife imagines throttling her predecessor. Celtic comfort and spruced-up sentiment by a seasoned hand.

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