I am not a big fan of short stories but I seem to keep finding them. This time it's Maeve Binchy's "This Year It Will Be Different". I wanted something light, not chicklit and comforting to act as the filling in a sandwich of thrillers. So far I have only read the first story. It was good. Set the scene well for a novel. I was quite looking forward to seeing how Julie would cope over the years with her step-daughter. However it seems that Binchy decided that after one nice moment with a step-daughter we had been led to expect was pretty hard work, that everything would be OK.
Apparently one of the short stories has been made into a major film. I do sometimes think that short stories are an author trying out ideas. Sometimes they are superb. Last year I read Sophie Hannah's "The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets" and the first story in the book was amazing. I was kept guessing until the very last sentence which made me exclaim out loud so surprising it was! The rest were a little bit of a let down. However it did lead me to find some of her novels in the library which have been amazing. More on those later.
Back to these Maeve Binchy short stories. As I progress they are growing on me. All well written and a little bit like having a box of tiny but perfect truffles to eat (rather than a massive bar of cheap chocolate).
