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.
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