This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Claire Coughlan
I really enjoyed (or should that be ‘hearted’?) Irish author Ella Griffin’s first novel, Postcards from the Heart, which was about four friends experiencing the complications and tribulations of thirty-something life, with lots of wicked observations thrown in. One of the characters from Postcards, a self-obsessed actor called Greg Gleeson, even had his own Twitter account, which was very funny indeed. But I have to say that The Heart Whisperer totally surpassed my expectations. In short, I loved it.
Dublin-based actress Claire Dillon is thirty-three, the same age as her late mother was when she died in a terrible accident twenty seven years before. The major difference is, Claire’s mother was a successful GP, while Claire feels that she herself is now frittering her life away, with the help of her oldest friend, the gorgeous ex-rock star Ray Devine. She hasn’t had an acting job or a meaningful relationship in three years.
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Meanwhile, Claire’s brother Nick is back from America with his perfect wife Kelly, carving a career on daytime TV for himself as ‘Dr Nick’, the guy who can solve everyone’s problems. Except his own, that is. When another accident throws the dysfunctional Dillons together, they learn more about each other than they’d bargained for and the past isn’t quite as clear cut as it first appeared.
This is a really warm, big-hearted novel that has the author’s by now trademark humour stamped all over it. Characters such as the Clancys, the husband and wife daytime TV duo, are hilarious and spot on but the humour is never cruel nor does it ever descend into stereotype. There is a touching, emotional core at the centre of this book reminiscent of a Maeve Binchy novel and I look forward to lots more from Ella Griffin.
9/10