Another Kind of Life (TPB) - Tapa blanda

A cleverly constructed tale about two groups of sisters living in Ireland in the late 19th century. Hannah, May and Eleanor live in Dublin with their middle class parents, and the story opens with the three of them going to the Lord Lieutenant's children's party. Hannah is six, May four and Eleanor still a baby at this time. In the north, Maria and Cecilia are also sisters who struggle in the linen mills of Belfast to make a few shillings to help their mother. What happens and how the two sets of lives unfold makes an absorbing tale which is beautifully told. All in all, a novel of real quality.

Hannah, May and Eleanor are sisters whose early life in Dublin with their middle class parents, has prepared them for a comfortable future of marriage, children and servants. Further North, Mary and Cecilia are also sisters, struggling to make a living in the linen mills of Belfast amid rising political tension.The lives of all the sisters are destined to unfold in ways that none of them could have imagined and ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE is the intricately crafted tale of how their lives entwine, against the backdrop of the rapidly changing Ireland of the late 19th century.In her eagerly awaited new novel Catherine Dunne returns to the themes of family ties, love and loyalty which she has delineated so finely in her earlier work but this time she opens out her canvas to tell us a much wider story. Perceptive, absorbing and beautifully told, ANOTHER KIND OF LIFE is an unforgettable portrait of a family, and of Ireland, which will stay with the reader long after the last page.