Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy

Warning - contains spoilers 

This book is long! 824 pages. I bought it, second- hand, in paperback and it was so thick that (having become used to reading on a Kindle) it felt quite uncomfortable to hold at first. 

I’m an avid reader of crime fiction, and when the story opened with a ‘flash-forward’ in a coroner’s court, I found myself expecting a murder to occur. Eventually, I realised that it wasn’t that kind of story and I became immersed in the engaging saga of two women’s friendship. 

Vivid characterisation really is the heart of this book. The main characters are loveable, especially lively red-head Aisling. There was a large supporting cast of distinctive characters: fun-loving Harry, narcissistic Johnny, moaning Maureen. I felt that I was supposed to like Eileen but I found her prematurely old demeanour and judgemental Catholicism quite unattractive. I couldn’t really relate to Simon and Henry – at first I assumed they were a gay couple – how wrong I was! 

And then, after 814 pages a murder does occur. It was what I’d expected in the beginning and had given up on, and when it came I found it the least believable and most unsatisfying part of the book.I’d been suckered.

This review was first published on Good Reads.