Book review: One woman’s pursuit of true love and a lifelong dream

Prolific Irish writer Roisin Meaney’s 22nd novel  Moving On follows the life and loves of Ellen Sheehan.

We start in 1981 and Ellen is getting ready to leave home for Galway city. She’s just turned 20 and is looking forward to starting her dream job — surrounded by books every day working in a book shop.

Ellen has a contentious relationship with her mother, which started when her dad left them. 

Although she’s going to be moving in with her mother’s older sister Frances, Ellen is excited to be leaving her small town behind. 

Her best friend Claire, who’s wilder than her in many ways, will be joining her in Galway as soon as she can.

As she gets ready to board the bus, Claire tells Ellen to “find a proper boyfriend” and “stop being so fussy”. 

Claire proclaims sex to be “no big deal” but Ellen wants the big deal. She wants the passion she’s read about in her beloved books, and won’t settle for anything less.

Over the next four decades, we travel with Ellen from Galway, where she meets her first love Ben, and reconnects with her childhood friend Danny, to London, where she falls for and marries charming Leo.

During the decades, Ellen’s career unfolds from working in a bookshop to becoming an award-winning ad copywriter in London, to eventually following her dream of becoming a novelist.

Some relationships endure and strengthen over time — her aunt Frances becomes her confidant and her friendship with Danny goes from strength to strength — while others, her relationship with her mother and her friendship with Claire, go through ebbs and flows.

But through it all, Meaney ensures we’re rooting for Ellen, even as life throws her curveball after curveball. 

We read on as she handles heartbreak and betrayal, rejoice when she tentatively re-connects with her long-lost father, and grieve with her as she loses people she loves.

Ellen’s character is relatable. She knows what she wants — a simple life with a man she loves and who loves her, a job she enjoys, and happy children. 

But life isn’t always that cut and dry, and Ellen’s quest for a soulmate brings her through the years and back full circle to Galway.

As she handles various setbacks, Ellen is nothing if not decisive. 

When she makes a decision, she commits to it, and her return to Ireland after a double betrayal sees her re-locating her life with two young children in tow.

But she thrives back in Ireland, and her young girls — Juliet and Grace — grow up, first in Dublin and later in Galway.

Although Ellen is looking for that one true love, this isn’t a character that can only thrive in a relationship. 

If anything, Ellen’s independence and capability sees her flourish when she is single. 

She gets her first book deal after she moves to Dublin, fulfilling her pledge to first-love Ben all those years ago in the bookshop in Galway. 

We also see her negotiating her own relationship with her daughters, supporting them through their own trials, and managing a somewhat tempestuous younger daughter.

There’s so much that’s familiar in Meaney’s novel, from young love to the excitement of living in a big city like London, from starting a career to starting a family. 

Meaney explores the relationships that shape and nurture Ellen, until we end up back where we began, in Galway, with those she loves all around her.