Jeez, it took me forever to read a book! I read this one in bits and pieces, a few pages at a time before going to bed. It’s a long book, so it took a while, and there was a week or two when my 7 month old son decided he didn’t want to sleep well and would cry and cry to be held and rocked to sleep, so I’d spend time soothing him to sleep in the rocker only to have him wake up and start screaming again the moment I transferred him to his crib. And it would go on for a couple of hours like that. Ah, children.

But finally, finally, finally… I finished this book. Not that I minded it taking me so long, as it was a very nice story to escape into for a half hour at a time. This is the kind of story that makes you feel like you’ve struck up friendships with its characters, and are happy to sit back and hear a little about their lives. I’ve said it before: Maeve Binchy novels are character-driven stories about everyday, ordinary people living everyday, ordinary lives, and it just goes to show you what a wonderful writer Binchy is that she can make you care about them and stick through 432 pages of their everyday, ordinary happenings that somehow seem so interesting and comfortable in the hands of a gifted story teller.

I love Maeve Binchy. And I loved Heart and Soul. The story centers around employees of a heart clinic run by a cardiologist named Clara Casey. The novel follows these people and their family and friends through their lives as they connect to each other. Some of the people are characters we have met before in other Binchy novels, which is always fun. That’s another testament to what a great character writer Binchy is — when you get so attached to a character that discovering they’ve “lived on” in another novel is such a treat.

A must read for Binchy fans, and well worth a read for those who have yet to have the pleasure. (more…)