The Glass Lake

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…

"The Glass Lake" by Maeve Binchy is the first novel that I have read by this author, and what a novel it was! At first, I was a bit taken aback by the 757 pages. My thought, will a novel that has this many pages hold my interest? Ms. Binchy has a magical touch with her writing style. The plot, characters, and settings of "The Glass Lake" held my attention from the first page to the last. The plot kept moving along, not once did I skim pages due to boring dialogue and/or a stand still plot. Even though this is a fictional novel, I loved that the characters were believable. If you are looking for an entertaining, well written novel, I would definitely recommend adding this amazing story to your tbr list. I'm looking forward to reading show more additional novels by this wonderful author! show less

"The Glass Lake" by Maeve Binchy is the first novel that I have read by this author, and what a novel it was! At first, I was a bit taken aback by the 757 pages. My thought, will a novel that has this many pages hold my interest? Ms. Binchy has a magical touch with her writing style. The plot, characters, and settings of "The Glass Lake" held my attention from the first page to the last. The plot kept moving along, not once did I skim pages due to boring dialogue and/or a stand still plot. Even though this is a fictional novel, I loved that the characters were believable. If you are looking for an entertaining, well written novel, I would definitely recommend adding this amazing story to your tbr list. I'm looking forward to reading show more additional novels by this wonderful author! show less

A heartfelt, moving story set in a traditional Irish village of Lough Glass, Irish for Glass Lake. The story revolves around this lake and the McMahon family. Helen McMahon, the despondent wife of Martin, disappears when her daughter Kit is 12 years old, and it is suspected that she drowned in the lake. Kit finds a letter from her mother and burns it before reading it, fearing that a suicide note will prevent her from having a church burial, due to committing the ultimate sin of suicide.
In fact, Helen has left her kind and devoted husband, Martin, and two children, Kit and Emmet, to run off to London to be with her dashing lover, Louis Gray. Lough Glass was not the right fit for Helen, hence why she was unable to settle there with show more Martin, who married her after Louis Gray had left her. But her one true love was Louis who was nothing but a scumbag.
Kit struggles to grow up without her mother and with the stigma of her mother's supposed death by suicide. Kit forges a close pen pal relationship with a woman named Lena Gray, who claims to have been a close friend of her mother, Helen, however Lena is in fact Helen.
The reader is introduced to many credible characters, and I am sure that you will find characteristics in each of them that evoke your emotions. At times, I often got annoyed with Lena/Helen and felt she was selfish, foolish, too proud, and not at peace with good. The reality was, she longed to be a mother to her children, who had basically gotten on with their lives, and after all, she was supposed to be dead. However, the story focuses on the relationship between Kit and her mother, on their secret, secrets in marriage, friendship and companionship. Lough Glass is a town full of secrets, and the hermit Sister Madeleine (village confidant) who lives on the lake edge knows them all.
I enjoyed reading about the young love interests of the adolescents of Lough Glas and how they were intertwined in each other's lives and supported one another. A happy ending for Martin McMahon who deserved to find a love that matched his steady but sure lifestyle.
I would have liked Helen to end up with James, the hotelier in London, and find happiness, but unfortunately, true love is blind, and the betrayal of Louis left her with scars too deep to commit. The story ends tragically, but it allows those left behind to carry on with their lives as normally as possible. show less

Maeve Binchy is a whizz at creating characters and dramatic scenes. However this book went on too long. I loved the beginning but by the end, I wanted it to end sooner.

Helen McMahon lives in a small town with her husband, Martin, her young daughter, Kit, and her son who has a stutter. Kit is the star of the book, she loves her mother so much and defends her from her best friend and the town gossips.

Revelations come later as she and Martin discuss her previous love and he wants to marry her despite that he knows that she still yearns for Louis.

Helen, Kit’s mother goes for long walks at night and always stays to herself. Then she disappears, Martin’s boat is found adrift and the town thinks that she took the boat to drown herself.

I show more loved Kit and her brother and Martin was set in his ways but devoted but later on, the story shifts to England with big surprises.

This is a mother-daughter story the most of all. But prepared for a very long read. show less

(Note: Slight spoiler ahead!) In Maeve Binchy's The Glass Lake, we are introduced to Cleo and Kit, two young girls growing up in the small Irish village of Lough Glass, a place where everybody knows everyone but not necessarily everyone's secrets. When Kit's mother, always a bit of an enigma and an outsider in the small town, disappears, the whole town is convinced that she has committed suicide, and when a body is found by the lake some weeks later, it is presumed to be hers. However, Kit, in an effort to make sure that her mother is buried in consecrated ground, has a secret - she has destroyed a letter left by her mother, a letter that if read would have changed everything. The consequences of that action are enormous and show more far-reaching.... I've been discovering Binchy's work over the past year, and generally find it a kind of comfort reading, very engaging and absorbing. For some reason, though, I had difficulty getting into this particular novel; eventually I succumbed, but it took a while this time. I think it might have been simply that I've read enough of her work now to be able to predict events to come (and I was right in all cases). But then, I don't read Binchy primarily for the storyline, I'm more interested in the way she draws complex characters, and in that regard both Kit and her mother are very well drawn indeed. So, a slightly lower recommendation than is usual for me with respect to this author, but still a good read. show less

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 show more in the book - which is fair enough - but although there were moments which should have been emotional, they left me mostly untouched. show less