Girls in their married bliss - Edna O'Brien

A classic title in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy - the third volume

Kate and Baba are in London, playing out the tragicomedy of their married lives to its surprisingly level-headed conclusion.

Kate, feeling trapped in her grey stone house with her increasingly cold husband, tearfully looks for her dreams of romance elsewhere. And when Eugene takes terrible, implacable revenge, she naturally turns to her brazen friend Baba for help.

But Baba, the bored trophy wife of builder Frank, vulgarly flashing his wealth and ignorance to the world, has her own problems without Kate drooping self-pityingly over her. And both women find unsuspected qualities in themselves as they learn to face reality.