Stories about ordinary people going about ordinary lives will always be fascinating when told by a writer blessed with extraordinary talent, insight, and compassion. This Year It Will Be Different, is a stunning new work that brings us the magic and spirit of Christmas in fifteen stories filled with Maeve Binchy’s trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius. Instead of nostalgia, Binchy evokes contemporary life; instead of Christmas homilies, she offers truth; and instead of sugarplums, she brings us the nourishment of holidays that precipitate change, growth, and new beginnings.

          The stories in This Year It Will Be Different powerfully evoke many lives during the one holiday of the year when feelings cannot be easily hidden: step-families grappling with exes; long-married couples faced with in-law problems; a wandering husband choosing between 'the other woman’ and his wife; a child caught in the grown-up tug-of-war. The time of year may be magical, imbued with personal meaning, but the situations are universal, and Maeve Binchy makes us care about them all.

CONTENTS:
1. The First Step of Christmas
2. The Ten Snaps of Christmas
3. Miss Martin’s Wish
4. How About You?
5. Christmas Timing
6. Christmas Present
7. The White Trolley
8. The Feast of Stephen
9. The Civilised Christmas
10. Pulling Together
11. A Hundred Miligrams
12. The Christmas Baramundi
13. This Year It Will Be Different
14. Affair Before Christmas
15. Season of Fuss
16. "A Typical Irish Christmas…"
17. Travelling Hopefully
18. The Extended Family
19. What Is Happiness?
20. Too Many Days
21. The Best inn in Town
22. The Christmas Child