Library at edge of world

3 stars

This is a nice, quiet book that is an easy read. Hannah fled her small hometown for London after school. She married a successful and wealthy lawyer, had a daughter, and lived a sophisticated life. Years later when she discovers he’s being unfaithful, she packs her daughter up and moves back to her small hometown in Ireland.

Hannah finds work as a librarian and drives the bookmobile van several times a week around the county. After her daughter grows up. moves to Paris and begins a career working for an airline, Hannah realizes just how unhappy she is. She feels suffocated by her overbearing mother and yearns for independence.

Hannah decides to renovate the small house her aunt left her. She envisions a nice, quiet solitary life where she can continue to lick her wounds and feel sorry for herself. When she discovers that her library is in danger of being closed, however, she decides to take matters into her own hand. She begins to organize her community to fight the council’s plans to shut the library and spend all of the county’s money on a new, big marina a few towns over. Doing so makes her realize her life isn’t quite so small after all.