I have to state, with no hesitation, I love Monica McInerney. She is a fantastic writer and her characters always feel like friends by the end of the book. This time was no exception.

The wilful and eccentric Lola Quinlan is off on the trip of a lifetime, taking her beloved granddaughter and great-granddaughter with her. More than sixty years after emigrating to Australia, she's keeping a secret promise to return to her Irish homeland.

As much as I wanted to love this book, I struggled to warm to the characters and felt that they needed to be more colourful or rounded to make me want to go further into the story. I was finding it a slog by a third of the way through so did not finish it.

Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

The title caught my attention, the characters are believable.. The story twists and turns, but you can imagine it being reality. You cannot go back in time or press repeat, places change as do we. If you left your home country to live in another you will never be the same. Whether you leave or stay there will be issues. But you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! It is an great read and stimulates your imagination, think about those that did take the mail boat (from Dublin) or anyone who has travelled far to live in another land. Modern times makes this historical, these days living abroad would be much easier and not so isolating.

I knew that Monica McInerney has many fans of her books, but I had never read her, so I picked this one to start with. I didn't realise that this was part of a series, but it worked perfectly fine as a standalone. This is an emotionally affecting family drama, set in the Clare Valley in South Australia and in Ireland, with a trip down memory lane that is the trip of a lifetime. The larger than life 85 year old Lola Quinlan is a woman with bags of personality and grit, who feels the time has come to finally get to grips with her past and all her buried family secrets. She wants her only son, Jim, and the family to know the truth about her life. Lola's life had its difficulties and hardships, at the age of 20 she left Ireland to settle in Australia, with her marriage turning out to be short lived.

Lola makes the decision to return to Ireland to confront her past, taking her granddaughter, Bet, an editor and her great granddaughter, Ellen, with her. Just like in real life, Lola's plans do not all turn out as she had envisaged. Ireland is a much changed place from what Lola remembered and circumstances lead to Jim joining her. Geraldine, Lola's daughter in law is not an easy woman to put up with, resentment overflows from this unhappy character and her wall of disbelief. This is a lovely story of family, past and present, with its share of fraught relationships related with warmth and humour. Lola palpably feels the freedom gained from the release of burdens carried for so long. The author creates wonderfully diverse and relatable characters that have the ring of authenticity about them. I found this an enjoyable and entertaining read that I raced through and am so pleased to have read Monica McInerney at last. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

What a good read!! An eccentric old lady decides she needs to visit her place of birth 60 years after emigrating from Ireland to Australia. Along the way their are memories long forgotten and lots of secrets that need to be told. An engaging story of family secrets love and relationships that all combine to give a feelgood read that I enjoyed. Another good book from Monica McInerney.

Lola Quinlan came to Australia from Ireland more than sixty years ago and she has never been back.

Now she feels the time is right and perhaps the truth about her original reason for coming to Australia needs to be told.

Lola is too old for secrets anymore. But it seems she just can't help herself.

When she lets slip that a television programme is to be filmed in their hometown, Clare Valley her granddaughter, Bett editor of the local newspaper is rather put out.

Even more so when it seems that Bett is to accompany Lola back to Ireland along with Bett's niece, Ellen who is becoming more and more like her mother Anna as the days go by.

The adventure begins, but it is fraught with the people and situations they leave behind and when they also arrive in Ireland. Lola realises that maybe she does not want to face the past.

When a tragedy sends Bett and Ellen back to Australia early, Lola's son, Jim comes across to take their place. Only then do all the secrets that have been running through this family like tumbleweed seem to come out and everything starts to make sense for many of them.

I enjoyed the parts of the book when we were taken back to Ireland and Lola's strict upbringing and the events which led her to be in Australia, married and pregnant. But the more contemporary story was rather weak and I didn't feel the characters were perhaps strong enough to hold such a long book - I admit to skim reading many pages.

The plot had an inevitability about it and I was simply just reading to see the predicted events happen and the secrets revealed. Of course many books can be like that and they are still enjoyable, for me it didn't work with this book.

Disappointed with this read as I have read some really good Monica McInerney books in the past.

Review: This story is set in two countries Ireland and Australia and is about returning home to face the past and the secrets there. It is a perfect Mothers day gift. Lovely story.

What a lovely story. A tale of family secrets and building relationships. The story moves easily from Australia to Ireland and brings alive the world of Lola who at 85 wants to return to the country of her birth. Aided by her granddaughter Bett they go on an adventure of discovery, revealing secrets from Lola's past and discovering Bett's live in the process.
Wonderful characters and a lovely story, making this book funny and a little bit sad.

Yet again Monica McInerney has opened up a world of family, love, warmth, and heartbreaking secrets that will sweep you up and hold your attention until the very end of the story.

Lola is a quirky, stubborn, and absolutely wonderful woman in her eighties who decides it is time to return to Ireland for a trip that she needs to make. Going along for the ride is Lola's granddaughter and great-granddaughter. It has been a long time since she has set foot on the Emerald Isle but as memories from the past resurface, secrets will be set free and the importance of family will take centre stage even more.

The characters are very relatable and I quickly fell in love with Lola and her beloved family. Moving from past to present, Lola's life and the truth about what happened to her help to show us how she has become the woman that she is today. As always, the settings of Australia and Ireland are described with breathtaking detail and make you feel like you are there which is such an important part of a good story.
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THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME by Monica McInerney is a superb story of family and recognising our past no matter how much it may hurt, and I thoroughly recommend this book to fiction fans the world over.

How have a missed this author????
This was a fabulous read and I am certainly going to read more of her books. I couldn't put it down. It has everything you need in a book to totally lose yourself.

This is a beautiful book with real characters anyone can relate to.
Lola emigrated to Australia from Ireland as a young women. Now in her mid eighties she decides to return to Ireland with her granddaughter and great granddaughter to show them where she came from.
However Lola has secrets which are slowly discovered over the course of the book.
Beautifully written a really lovely book which investigates the inner workings of family relationships and the lengths people will go to to protect the people they love.

The characters were well written and interesting, especially Lola. However, the secrets and stories were very anti-climatic. So much drama within the family over shocking secrets from the past really turned out to be such damp squibs that nobody cared! When Lola returned to Ireland it would have been a great opportunity for something truly confronting to have come out from her past, but in the end she just has dinner with the family of her old friend. Hardly worth the build up. A missed opportunity here for a usually fabulous author.

Lola is now 85 and living in Australia when she has the desire to go back to her native Ireland and face the demons from her past. She decides to take her granddaughter Beth and great granddaughter Ellie with her..... If she can get Ellie off the phone and social media for long enough that is! As the plans are made it is turning into the trip of a lifetime... but can Lola really face the secrets that she left behind

A lovely warm book catching up with Lola's story, she is such a wonderful eccentric character that you can't help falling in love with her. I love all the books by this author and am always delighted to see there is a new one out

The Trip of a Lifetime by Monica McInerney is simply a wonderful heartwarming tale of family, memories and love. The characters are warm and friendly and find yourself absorbed into the story with each turn of the page.

Wonderfully written with the fabulous Lola as the lead character, this book will make you, laugh, smile, possibly shed a tear but ultimately make you feel warm inside.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK Michael Joseph and the author for the chance to review.

Lola has organised a trip back to her homeland with one of her daughters and grandaughters. She's lived in Australia for a long time and thinks the time has come for her to revisit the places she remembers. She wants them to experience the trip without being glued to social media which brings challenges to the different generations. As a keen photographer I can understand some of the reservations about experiencing everything opposed to being behind a screen!
Lola is hiding secrets and we wonder whether this trip will bring them tumbling out. I loved the family dynamics and the way that life back in Australia was important to the storyline aswell.
I also loved the feel of the Irish community- the fact that a village or town will only be so many degrees removed from whoever you need to find.
I love Monica's books and have read several before- as soon as I finished this one I ordered more for my kindle and look forward to reading more. Her writing style is lovely and you get drawn into the family feeling as though you know everyone and have stopped off for a cuppa and a catch up.

Lovely family easy reading book.
Lola is 85 and decides to take a trip of a lifetime with her Grand daughter and great grand daughter returning to Ireland 60 years after she left. Lovely descriptions and a enjoyable family drama , a joy to read - it's a story of secrets and has a warmth and believable characters to it. Lola appears in Monicas' other books but this is still a book you can enjoy without reading the others

Loved it. was a delight to read. Charming read. Characters were very real and down to earth.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher and author. Another one of my favourite authors and this was a wonderful book as well. I sat and read and read and read.

My review as posted on Goodreads:

This is the first time that I have read a book by Monica McInerney. It will not be the last if this is anything to go by.

Once I had got past the first few pages I found the book totally enchanting.

The characters and the way in which they develop and unfold was a joy to read.

This is a book which is very amusing in places, it is also very moving in places. I loved the sense of time and place which Monica McInerney has captured, both in the historical sections and the modern sections of the story.

The quality of the writing is superb.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from this book. It surprised me. There were enough twists in the tale to keep me fully engaged to the end.

Well worth reading!

I give thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK for a copy of this book in exchange for this review.