Book Review: The O'Hara Affair by Kate Thompson

Fleur O’Farrell thinks that she has a pretty great life. She’s got a little boutique in the sleepy Irish town of Lissamore that does very well, a wealthy boyfriend Corban who seems to dote on here, and wonderful friends in the Kinsella sisters Rio and Dervla. Dervla’s just enjoying her new marriage when suddenly her mother-in-law who suffers with dementia has to move in with them, and Dervla finds herself having to be her carer. She’s horrified at the things she has to do for the elderly lady, but gets on with it to please husband Christian.

Around them, the town of Lissamore has been transformed with the arrival of a movie set called The O’Hara Affair. Fleur’s boyfriend Corban has ploughed a lot of money into the project, and she’s happy because a lot of her friends have got jobs through it. But as the film progresses, dark secrets are revealed, and a young member of the cast finds herself in a situation she doesn’t know how to get out of. With everyone being taken in by the glitz and glamour of the film, have they lost sight of their own problems?

I came across Kate Thompson last year when I read her novel The Kinsella Sisters, and I adored it. I loved the writing style and how quickly I got into the characters, so when I heard Kate was writing a follow up to that book I was quite excited. The O’Hara Affair isn’t a sequel like you would usually expect – the main character focus has shifted on to a minor character from The Kinsella Sisters, and Rio, one of the major characters from the first book, hardly pops up at all in this book. Still, I was curious to read it and find out how good it would be so when I received a copy a few weeks ago, I started it straight away.

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