Book reviews: recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest

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The Brightest Star in the Sky is another good romp by Dublin-based writer Marian Keyes. Keyes first burst on the scene with Watermelon in 1995 and went on to write several bestsellers including This Charming Man (2008). In her latest book, Keyes uses the interesting literary device of a wandering ghost to give us an inside look at the residents of a block of flats on 66 Star Street. What’s up with the lovely couple Matt and Maeve whose hearts beat in harmonious rhythm but there’s a dark cloud lurking – could those vitamin pills turn out to be antidepressants? Will Katie marry work-obsessed Conall even though she knows he’s not a perfect fit? She’s 40, after all, and her friends are telling her not to be so choosy. Then there’s the fabulous Fionn, a handsome country boy in the city for a shot at a TV gardening show. He has fallen hard for Maeve, or has he?

It’s the basement characters who most hold my attention – two Polish immigrants, Andrei, a tough guy who secretly cries of homesickness, and Jan, who Andrei treats like a younger brother – and their nemesis, Lydia, the tiny but tough-talking taxi-driving Irish girl who shares the flat. Sparks fly between Lydia and Andrei – they claim to hate each other, but what’s really brewing underneath the surface?

Keyes, who was born in Limerick in 1963, is one of my favorite “take along on a plane ride” writers (and at 614 pages, this latest tome is better saved for a long trip!). The first book of hers that I read was Rachel’s Holiday (1998), a hilarious and moving story about addiction and recovery. Though none of her other books have hit a chord for me the way that one did, Keane knows how to spin a yarn and is always entertaining. Her characters are thoroughly believable, and the plot always has a surprising twist, or two. In fact, I wouldn’t be the first to say that Keyes is on course to inherit the mantle of the great Irish queen of romance, Maeve Binchy.

– Patricia Harty

($26.00 / 614 pages / Viking)

Fiction

Erin Hart is the author of award-winning mystery novels Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows. Her latest, False Mermaid, to be released in March 2010, is a haunting, eerie page-turner that combines a wealth of Irish mythology about mermaids, seals and selkies with archeology and the compelling forensic details of several linked murders, all set against the gorgeously rendered settings of both Minnesota and Donegal.

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