The Glass Lake [Hardcover]

Maeve Binchy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 1995

An incandescent novel of love, obsession, and the secrets that take root in the human heart, by the author of The Copper Beech and Circle Of Friends. Lough Glass is at the heart and soul of the namesake town clinging to its shore. They say that if you go out on St. Agnes' Eve and look into the lake at sunset you can see your future. But beneath its serene surface, the lake harbors secrets as dark and unfathomable as the beautiful woman who night after night walks beside its waters. Lough Glass is home to Kit McMahon, in a way it will never be to her lovely mother, Helen, who does not fit in with the ways of the people of Lough Glass, and who found an unlikely mate in the genial pharmacist Martin McMahon. Kit adores her mother, but can't escape the picture of her, alone at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face... or walking alone by the glass lake. Then one terrible night Martin's boat is found drifting upside down in the lake. The night Helen is lost. The night Kit discovers a letter on Martin's pillow and burns it, unopened, in the grate. The night everything changes forever.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the tradition of her beloved novel Circle of Friends, Irish novelist Maeve Binchey offers a wonderful old-fashioned melodrama with a contemporary cast of compelling characters. A sly, seductive, and compulsively readable book, perfect for rainy afternoons and late nights in bed. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Bestselling novelist Binchy (Light a Penny Candle; Silver Wedding) again explores the passions and priorities of Irish women in a seductively written tale that's a bona fide page-turner. She sets this story in the small village of Lough Glass, the "glass lake" of the title, in Dublin and in London, animating each place more by the robust characterization of the people who live there than by the use of descriptive detail. When Kit McMahon is 12, her sad and distant mother disappears while walking along the lake. Authorities find the family's boat overturned, and, when Kit discovers a sealed letter addressed to her father, she fears that the suicide confession will keep her mother from a consecrated burial. She burns the letter, adding another burden to her misery. Helen is not dead, however. She has run off to London for great and compelling reasons, where she adopts the name Lena Gray and eventually becomes the director of an important employment agency. When Kit discovers her there years later, the anguish of both women is intensified by the complex situation, and the secret they now share eventually explodes in a way neither could have foreseen. If some aspects of the plot are contrived and the narrative overtold, the richness of Binchy's characters makes these drawbacks easy to forgive. A weeper of an ending brings this compelling saga to an unforgettable climax.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 584 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press; 2nd Edition edition (February 2, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385313543
• ISBN-13: 978-0739420737
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,050,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Maeve Binchy is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Nights of Rain and Stars, Quentins, Scarlet Feather, Circle of Friends, and Tara Road, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection. She has written for Gourmet; O, The Oprah Magazine; Modern Maturity; and Good Housekeeping, among other publications. She and her husband, Gordon Snell, live in Dalkey, Ireland, and London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Story, May 16, 2006

By 

Theresa W (mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glass Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

The reason I thoroughly enjoyed this book was plain and simple: it was a very good story. Along with very good characters and background. May not sound eloquent, but it's the truth.

With Binchy I have had a bit of a love/hate with her. The first book I read of hers, Tara Road, I had a hard time with. The reading was a bit tedius to me, and Binchy's voice was not what I was used to. However, since then I've read several other of her books- Light a Penny Candle, Silver Wedding- and while beginning them I need to give myself a push because honestly, they are quite long- keeping at it I am always pleased in the end. The Glass Lake is no different, at approx. 750 pages, you have to dedicate yourself to the reading. However, this story flowed well, was full of anticipation for the reader...the pages started to fly by.

I think out of the several books I've read of hers this is my favorite so far. Mainly because the characters and story is one that will stay with me- how could it not? I won't give anything away, but it was certainly very unique and it was interesting to see how it was handled and ended.

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great story - shame about the rushed end, May 27, 2000

By 

Dr W. Richards "wmr-uk" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Glass Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

As with other older Maeve Binchy novels, this is mostly a rites-of-passage novel set in a small Irish country town, Lough Glass. One day the young Kit's unhappy mother disappears, leaving a note which Kit destroys, not wanting to upset her father. Everyone assumes that she drowned in the lake, and life for Kit and the others goes on, but not without heartache as she grows up.

I was really engrossed in this book as it developed, looking forward to finding out the solutions to the various mysteries Binchy had set up. But as I got closer and closer to the end, with seemingly no real resolution to some of the issues, I found myself wondering how Binchy was going to tie up the book.

Then, in the last thirty pages, she rushed through several very major plot developments, reintroduced some characters and dealt with some serious emotional issues... in a very rushed and unsatisfactory manner. The pace had been leisurely throughout the rest of the book, and as such this really looked to me as if Binchy had suddenly realised that she was over her word limit and needed to tie up all the loose ends as briefly as possible. It didn't work, and really spoilt for me what could have been a wonderful book.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love Her Or Hate Her Type Author; Great Book IMNSHO!, March 20, 2001

By 

carol irvin "carol irvin" (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Glass Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

I'll tell you right now that I have no problem believing that there are readers who love Binchy's books and those who hate them. Her novels are sentimental and nostalgic, set back often in the 1950s and 1960s, as this one is. She probably isn't far from maudlin but for me she doesn't quite tip over into being that heavy handed. Her novels are also romances combined with family sagas. I admit to having a very wide sentimental and nostalgic streak, however. Hence, I like her books just fine. With that warning in mind, and if you're still here, this novel involves two lead women, a mother and a daughter. The mother has run away with her boyfriend. Her daughter and rest of her family thinks she is dead. But she's not. She's working her butt off in England to support the bum boyfriend while her family remains in Ireland. It gets better because the story is even more the daughter's, who comes of age and meets the man of other women's dreams, Stevie Sullivan, who she needs to go out with so Stevie will stop going out with her brother's would-be girlfriend. On the surface, Stevie seems like a hard working version of her mother's boyfriend. One is tempted to think he's otherwise the same womanizing scoundrel. We follow the stories of both mother and daughter and at one point, the stories intersect. I couldn't put it down. Stevie Sullivan, for my money, is one of the best romance heroes ever written but the rest of the book is splendid as well. I read this huge book on one entire Saturday starting early in the morning. I even promptly started rereading parts of it when I was done, the true test of a book that's gotten under your skin. If you can resist it, you are a stronger person that I am!