cover image Greetings from Somewhere Else

Greetings from Somewhere Else

Monica McInerney. Ballantine Books, $14 (431pp) ISBN 978-0-345-50638-2

McInerney provides a barely probable story that all too often collides with cliché. Lainey Byrne has the usual problems, what with her success in the corporate world and her mild failures in all things romantic. This quasi-idyllic existence comes to an end when she leaves for rural Ireland to take over a neglected bed and breakfast so her family can collect a rich aunt's inheritance. Though Lainey's inexperience with cooking and cleaning puts her in a precarious position at first, McInerney dodges the potential cliché of having the protagonist fall back on her chef ex-boyfriend, Adam-but only to choose the equally hackneyed route of her finding new love in an old school chum, and an unexpectedly fulfilled life at the bed and breakfast. The tired plot line isn't helped by carelessly developed characters.