{"id":637,"date":"2012-03-21T19:51:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T00:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/?p=637"},"modified":"2012-03-21T19:51:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T00:51:15","slug":"the-maeve-binchy-binge-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/21\/the-maeve-binchy-binge-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maeve Binchy Binge is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just finished <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/42455\/book\/84042062\">Quentins<\/a><\/em>, fourth in a series of novels by Maeve Binchy set in Dublin. \u00a0I liked the way the threads of the three previous novels came together around the story of the restaurant although I found the main character incredibly frustrating. There were times when I just wanted to shake her.<\/p>\n<p>The three previous books were <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/21612\">Scarlet Feather<\/a><\/em>, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/4239\">Evening Class<\/a><\/em>, and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/2880\">Tara Road<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0The first two were my favorites: they all had some quirky characters woven into the story that kept me interested. \u00a0Tara Road was a little predictable but a good story of women learning independence. \u00a0None of them were great literature and I don&#8217;t feel the need to read any more Binchy. \u00a0But they were a nice diversion and I loved the Dublin setting.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve moved on to Martha Grimes. \u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/22542\">Belle Ruin<\/a><\/em> is the third in her series about 12-year-old Ellen Graham. I read the other two a long time ago so I&#8217;m a little hazy on the story but it doesn&#8217;t really matter. Ellen&#8217;s narration is insightful and delightful at the same time as she describes the cast of characters in and around the Hotel Paradise. \u00a0Her curiosity seems insatiable.<\/p>\n<p>My last road trip gave me time to listen to <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/1014691\/book\/83766375\">The Thirteenth Tale<\/a><\/em> by Diane Setterfield. \u00a0I was riveted by this heart breaking story full of history, family secrets and an old book store.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that the only one of these books that I bought was <em>Belle Ruin<\/em> and it was part of a $2 bag from the library so it hardly counts, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just finished Quentins, fourth in a series of novels by Maeve Binchy set in Dublin. \u00a0I liked the way the threads of the three previous novels came together around the story of the restaurant although I found the main character incredibly frustrating. There were times when I just wanted to \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/21\/the-maeve-binchy-binge-is-over\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[50,11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31UVs-ah","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}