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    The Glass Lake
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    The Glass Lake
    Unavailable
    The Glass Lake
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    The Glass Lake

    Written by Maeve Binchy

    Narrated by Fionnula Flanagan

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Night after night the beautiful woman walked beside the serene waters of Lough Glass. Until the day she disappeared, leaving only a boat drifting upside down on the unfathomable lake that gave the town its name. Ravishing Helen McMahon, the Dubliner with film-star looks and unfulfilled dreams, never belonged in Lough Glass, not the way her genial pharmacist-husband Martin belonged, or their spirited daughter Kit. Suddenly, she is gone and Kit is haunted by the memory of her mother, seen through a window, alone at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face. Now Kit, too, has secrets: of the night she discovered a letter on Martin's pillow and burned it, unopened. The night her mother was lost. The night everything changed forever…


    From the Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 5, 2000
    ISBN9780553750096
    Unavailable
    The Glass Lake

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    Reviews for The Glass Lake

    3.5/5

    524 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      terrible ending
    • 5/5
      Maeve Binchy has written another winner about a family in Lough Glass, Ireland. Binchy's characters are always a strong point of her novels. By the end of the book, you are believing that they are real people. Book is a bit long but the pages are flying fast as you can't get enough of the story. The ending was sad and a surprise to me. I'm looking forward to my next Binchy book. I would recommend her books to those who love to read about Ireland.
    • 2/5
      I found that the story didn't grab my interest even though I finished it. It was a long slow moving book and at the end it felt unfinished. I would not recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Set in the early 1950's in Ireland and London, this novel provided an excellent and entertaining read. The plotting was more complex than is usually found to be the case in light fiction, with true drama and a number of unexpected twists and turns that contribute to the reader's enjoyment. This is my first Maeve Binchy book.
    • 4/5
      Another of my cozy favorites...Binchy at her best. again, an author makes a questionable tinme period (this time, restrictive 1960's ismall town Ireland) seem like a lovely place to live.
    • 5/5
      My daughter Laurie induced me to read The Copper Beech on August 5, 2012, and when I liked it she suggested I read this 1994 novel. It involves the disappearance of a woman, leaving behind a well-meaning husband and two children. One of the children, Kit, is a girl of 12 who for reasons which seemed good to her caused the small Irish town to believe he disappaeaer had drowned in the lake. The dramatics of the story are very intense for the first half of the book and again in the final denouement and it is hard to not want to keep reading even though the theme is not fraught with universal significance. I don't know life in small town Ireland in the 1950's but it is easy to believe that the book captures that life in its essence. Maybe some of the mood changes in the characters seem unusual and not likely, but one doesn't hesitate to wonder how the dilemma will be worked out. Whether you will like the way it wors outI don't know, but on reflection I decided it was satisfactory.
    • 4/5
      This is one of Maeve Binchy's earlier books. It was published in 1994. I don't remember for sure how I got it. It may have been a present from my sister or my mother. In 1994 I had just started back to school and money was tight so I know I didn't buy this Hardback book.I first discovered Binchy's writing when I visited Dublin in 1988. She was writing columns for the Irish Times and I loved them. Then I was thrilled to find a copy of The Lilac Bus in a bookstore which meant I could enjoy her writing even when I went back to Canada (remember this is pre-internet days). I don't remember too much about this book but I'm sure I loved it as I did everything of Binchy's until the extremely disappointing Nights of Rain and Stars.
    • 5/5
      My favorite book that I have read like 100 times. I'm not the best book reviewer, but I'll just say it's a great one! (and it may be time for me to hunt it up again!)
    • 4/5
      Some elements of this were great: the basic idea of the disappearance of the main character's mother, the way in which the central misunderstanding occurs, the way this alters the family dynamics. All pretty gripping.Other bits I didn't enjoy so much. When the story shifted to Lena and her transformation of the office, some of the interest was lost for me. Also the party in the hotel storyline was a bit tedious.Events became a bit melodramatic towards the end, and lost me a bit. Unusual for a Maeve Binchy novel. Not bad, but not brilliant.
    • 4/5
      I read this several years ago but remember enjoying it very much. I think it may be my favorite Maeve Binchy story to date; but I have not read them all.
    • 5/5
      Loved, Loved, Loved this book. I did not think that Maeve Binchy could write a book that I enjoyed more than Circle of Friends......but she did!!
    • 4/5
      An Irish mother, bored with her life as the wife of a small-town pharmacist, runs off to London with her lover. An unexpected turn of events, however, insures that she will never be able to return home again. Told from the POV of the mother & the daughter she left behind (& longs to be re-united with) this story of longing & suspense hold our attention as the years pass & the daughter grows into a woman able to make her own judgements.
    • 3/5
      Wayyyy too long. I feel the story could have been cut in half and still been fine. I didn't care for Lena's spinelessness--she finally gets a backbone a bit late.... Characters are a bit too cookie cutter as well.
    • 3/5
      The story is about hope, love, white lies and betrayal in a family saga setting. There's interesting post-war social history too, as we see rapidly changing attitudes towards women's roles in society, divorce, and the issue of unmarried mothers.

      The book was well-written without being at all boring despite its length. There are several subplots that work alongside the main story of Kit's growing up, and just enough action for my tastes. The ending was satisfactory without being too neat and tidy.

      And yet...

      Somehow I had no empathy with any of the characters. They all seemed realistic, but not quite real. I didn't feel as if I knew any of them by the end of the book, and I didn't really care what happened to them. There wasn't much humour in the book - which is fair enough - but although there were moments which should have been emotional, they left me mostly untouched.
    • 4/5
      rabck from thegoaliegirl; good saga novel. Oh, what a tangled web we weave! Taking place in Lough Glass Ireland, mostly, Helen/Lena leaves her husband and children to go off with her previous lover. The family believes her to be dead - drowned in the lake - and the story continues for the next 20 years, with the lives of her children and other townspeople, as well as Helen/Lena's life and the London folks she works with and meets.