Circle of Friends

This is the moving story of two women who make an emotional as well as real journey. Ria Lynch is happily married, lives in Tara Road with her beloved Danny and their two children. Then she learns that Danny has a girlfriend, young and pregnant and he's leaving home. By a chance phone call she meets Marilyn Lynch from New England. Marilyn, who cannot come to terms with her only son's death has separated, perhaps permanently, from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences. They each learn a deep secret about the other, secrets that can never be revealed.They are drawn into the two very differing lifestyles. At first, they resent hearing the news of how well the other is getting on. Ria seems to have become a hostess entertaining half the neighborhood, which at first irritates the reserved withdrawn Marilyn, a woman who guarded her privacy. Marilyn seems to have become bosom friends with Ria's difficult teenage daughter and her enthusiastic young son, with Colm, a handsome restaurant owner and with a group of characters back in Dublin whom Ria has begun to miss terribly.At the end of the summer a lot has changed. The two women, Ria and Marilyn, have learned much from each other. Though they only meet in the closing, by this stage they are already firm friends. The two women are very strong characters nobody will forget.