Heart and Soul

A Maeve Binchy audiobook is a bit like a beloved family television drama: charming and absorbing, alive with appealing imagery and voices, and neatly stitched up by the end. Sile Bermingham's performance is impressive. She negotiates the considerable cast of characters with aplomb, changing accents and personalities effortlessly to add to the listening experience. As the title suggests, the novel is centered on a cardio health clinic in Dublin, but the true focus of the story is, indeed, the souls who work there. Each character is developed in true Binchy form, springing out as if three-dimensional, thanks to back stories and clever twists. Bermingham adds a finishing touch to each portrait with her lively performance. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

December 22, 2008
Binchy delivers another delightful Binchyesque amalgamation of intersecting lives, this time centering on Clara Casey, a cardiologist whose marriage and career have fallen apart. After she accepts an undesirable post at St. Brigid's Hospital, Clara throws herself into work to forget the humiliation of her husband's many affairs, but it's difficult to escape her home life with two adult daughters who still depend on her as if they were children. Though she stands at the center of the book, Clara cedes the stage to others, such as Declan Carroll, a young doctor at the clinic trying to make a life for himself, and Ania, Clara's assistant, whose affair with a married man forced her to leave her Polish hometown. Beautiful, hardworking and humble, Ania attracts the attention of Carl Walsh, the son of one of the clinic's patients. And so it goes in this novel of intersecting lives that keeps daily drama interesting even when it occasionally sacrifices suspense for realism. In spite of a few dull moments, the collective, charming effect of these story lines suggests that individuals are more connected than they might think.