Half Seven on a Thursday

by Roisin Meaney

'A novelist who has a gift for conveying the charm of the ordinary' Irish Independent on Number One bestselling author Roisin Meaney

As opening night nears for a local amateur production, the cast begin to realise that the real drama is taking place off-stage -- and in life there's no such thing as a dress rehearsal ...

When Edward Bull agreed to direct the amateur production of Death by Dying , he thought it would take his mind off his wife's recent affair. He was soon to discover, however, that all the real drama was taking place off-stage ...

Maria, trapped in a loveless marriage to an older man, makes an appalling discovery. If pushed, she knows she will do whatever it takes to protect her vulnerable son, Pat. But will she find the strength to do the one thing that would save them both?

Her sister Ellen, scarred after a tragic motorbike accident, seeks comfort where she can find it. Will she finally come to terms with what happened . . . and, perhaps, open her heart to love again?

Handsome, charming Robert glides through life. When Caroline threatens to take his sons away from him, however, he realises that everything he ever wanted was right under his nose. But is it too late?

As the weeks pass, the cast members of Death by Dying are brought together and their lives intertwine. And, as opening night draws near, they learn that in life there's no such thing as a dress rehearsal.

Genres: Fiction

447 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Born on 3rd September.
A published author of twenty books for adults and three for children, Roisin worked as an advertising copywriter for a number of years, and brings a vast amount of experience to the editing team. Her first novel, The Daisy Picker, won a Write a Bestseller competition. Her third novel, The Last Week of May reached number one on the Irish bestseller list and her fourth, The People Next Door reached number two. Her books have been translated into several languages, and two, Semi-Sweet and Life Drawing for Beginners, have been published in the US. She is currently working on her next book, which is scheduled for publication in autumn 2023. She is also plotting another children's book - shhhhh.

Reviews

[Obsidian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Updated June 25, 2024: Yeah this was still not a great re-read. I just have the same thoughts as I did on the original read.

Not bad, just not very interesting. I honestly thought that one of the characters, Judith, was honestly kind of awful in retrospect. I get that it was probably supposed to show how much she had done for her son, but I went yikes about her whole story-line. I also didn't really like the character of Edward and just thought that Ellen and Marie both needed a lot of therapy. Besides that I just read the book and just thought it was probably one of her weaker books. I think it's honestly because I didn't really like but two of the characters we followed. I have read others I have enjoyed a lot more.

"Half Seven on a Tuesday" follows the director of an amateur production and the cast that is involved with it. The director, Edward Bull is focused on directing the play and trying to forget his marriage.

Two sisters, Ellen and Maria are both barely getting through days and hope the play is something new to do. Maria is in a loveless marriage with a son who has autism. Ellen is still grieving the boyfriend she lost years ago.

Robert is happy in his life with his twin sons and his ex-wife who he runs a hairdressing shop with. Until it looks like she may be moving on.

Judith is still full of regrets over how the end of her marriage may have affected her son. Now an adult, Judith is wishing that he would come back from Greece.

Theo is in a happy relationship, but resentful of her boyfriend's 13 year old daughter. The two of them have a new baby and Theo wishes that the young girl didn't come to them once a week.

Harry is shy, but wants to do something new so he doesn't focus too much on the fact that his mother has Alzheimer's and there's not a lot going on in his life.

I honestly think there were just too many things going on in this one. And as I said above I didn't care for anyone besides two characters: Harry and Maria. Everyone else was selfish as the day was long. I think it's a tie between who I didn't like more, Theo or Judith. Theo was beyond selfish (who gets jealous of your current boyfriend's child?) and Judith (who ignored a lot of terrible things her son did and even through the last little bit of the book. And Judith stepped in and encouraged a girl she knew who had slept with her son (and it honestly sounded like rape possibly) to have an abortion since she knew her son would not make a good father. But I got the impression that Judith just didn't want the rest of the town to know what her son did and rightfully call him a POS. That whole plot point was awful. .

The writing didn't grab me like her other books and the flow was awful. I think because there was a lot going on here and trying to hang things around the play didn't work very well at all.

The ending had a lot of loose ends I thought though Meaney tried to make it seem like things ended on a somewhat happy note for all characters we followed.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another lovely read by Roisin Meaney. She is very consistent in her writing, and though her books are probably classified as chick-lit, they really are deeper than that, and not without occasional tragedy. Still, I always come away from them feeling satisfied and not depressed. The characters feel very real as do their stories. The drama in Meaney's books is the drama of reality and of human life, not overblown or ridiculous, which is probably why I am so quickly sucked in.
This books centers around the lives of a group of amateur actors, who meet while trying to put on a play. The narration shifts from one character to the other, which some might find distracting, but I enjoyed it. I won't go into detail about the characters stories, so I won't spoil it for anyone. Overall, a worthwhile read, and if you enjoy this, you will also like her book, "Life Drawing for Beginners", which is written in a similar style.

Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay. Right. Fine.

I want to love this book so bad, and I was definitely hooked by the end, but it is SUCH a hard book to get into. Each section of the book has a chapter with ALL 7 MAIN CHARACTERS!!!!! and then a chapter from each of them. When I was first reading it, all the characters and their lives just overloaded me and made it a really torturous read, which is why it took me 8 months to read. By the middle, I had most of the characters under control, but the book hit a bit of a lull, and then THE ENDING!!!

The end of this makes reading it all worth it. I was loving it by the ending, but the beginning was just a painful process, and while I could probably read it again, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

The characters are definitely the highlight of this book. Personally, Harry and Judith will always be in my heart. I think Maria and Ellen had good plot lines, and while I understood all their actions and motivations, they annoyed me a lot. A LOT. I think Theo had the best developed life and arch. I loved her chapters, and felt that she nicely fit into the other characters lives without overpowering their chapters. ROBERT WHEN I CATCH YOU. I hate Robert. I HATE HIM. I hope Caroline leaves him again. He's an insecure baby who cheated on his wife, then waits nine years till she's in a relationship to want her back in his life. ROBERT WHEN I CATCH YOU. When he proposed at the end I almost threw my book at the wall. Edward is a fine character.

The romance between Edward and Ellen, and Harry and Oliver were amazing. I think both pairs compliment each other a lot.

Anyway, apart from Robert (gag) I really liked everyone's endings and plotlines.

[stella watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

New beginnings

A predictable ending from the blurb but this didn't stop me from loving this book from start to finish. She always makes her characters come to life and make them real to me. I have really enjoyed all the books of hers I have read and this one certainly joins all the others. Can't wait to find another one I hadn't read.

[Nicki Southwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again excellent

[Mary Geraghty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Curtains up!!

Brilliant, brilliant. Quite liked the play to. What a clever piece of writing. The characters and the interplay between them was great. Fabulous read. 😃

[Donna Roslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am working my way through all of Roison Meaney's books. Each one pulls me in quickly and I simply love her writing. Please keep them coming!

[HM Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the journey of these characters

[Peggy Kennedy]

Love her books!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful story from Roisin Meaney, she never misses with the interesting characters she creates.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Edward Bull says yes to directing an amateur play Death By Dying, he has no idea just how much his life and the lives of the actors involved will change over the course of the 6 weeks it takes to get the play up to scratch. First there’s sisters Ellen and Marie, one still stung with grief over the death of her boyfriend while the other stays in her loveless marriage because she doesn’t know how to leave. Then there’s Judith, whose all alone since her son headed to Greece months earlier. Robert thinks he has the life he always wanted, until something come along to threaten everything he’s made. Harry is lonely, with only his ailing ma with him, and is shy to boot. And finally there’s Theo, happy in her relationship but struggling to come to terms with being a step-mother. As the curtain call draws closer, can these 7 people sort out their real life difficulties and manage to put on the performance of their lives in Death By Dying?

For a while now I’ve been wanting to read one of Irish writer Roisin Meaney’s novels. Her books look great but I’ve found it difficult to get hold of her books. When I was in England though I managed to pick up Half Seven on a Thursday for about £2, and brought it back to Tenerife with me. It’s taken me a long while to finally pick it up, but I was having a reading lull, not sure what I wanted to read, and picked this up on a whim and instantly became captured by the book, which is always nice.

Half Seven on a Thursday is a strange title for a book, but that’s the time and date in which our characters meet up to rehearse for the play they’re putting on so it makes perfect sense now I’ve read the book. The book itself starts very well, with a casting call put out for amateur actors to come and audition for the play, and we then meet our seven main characters: Edward, who is the director, and Ellen, Marie, Harry, Theo, Robert and Judith, who will all star in the play. We then follow their rehearsals each week and between that, we follow each separate character as they face struggles and difficulties in their real lives and we also see how the characters know of each other, even if they’ve never been properly introduced until that night at the pub when they audition for the play.

Now with seven characters, you’d be right to think that it takes a little while to get your head around who everyone is, along with all the supporting characters. It’s made worse by the fact that when they’re rehearsing, we get their characters names as well, so I did have to refer back to previous pages to remind myself who everyone was. I did eventually get the hang of it, though, which is always a bonus. In general, I liked all of the characters. None of them were particularly mean, but I obviously liked some more than others. Harry, Marie and Judith were wonderful characters, very subdued and a bit shy, and I suppose that’s what drew me to them as I’m a bit like that when I first meet people. Ellen, Edward and Theo were a bit more outspoken but, again, I liked them. Robert was the only one who I had a question mark over, as the synopsis makes him sound like a player, but, no, I think he was mis-represented there a little bit. He was probably my least favourite but he was in no way horrific. The supporting characters were a bit harder to separate as there are so many of them, but again, they were all well written.

Meaney has done a wonderful job to juggle so many different characters and plot lines. There are many different plot lines to follow including marital troubles, affairs, cancer, what it is to have a disable baby, how to deal with a drug-taking son, etc, and I thought Meaney handled them all very well. The book is very well written and I enjoyed reading it. I’ll definitely be picking up Meaney’s other novels, as I enjoy her ability to juggle so many different things at any one time and I do sometimes yearn for a book with multiple characters. Half Seven on a Thursday is a hugely enjoyable read, and one I would definitely recommend.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Somehow this book just all felt a little confused and, in places, plain old confusing. There is a varied cast of characters that we are introduced to and the conceit is that they are all drawn together through their casting in an amateur production of an aspiring playwright's play Death By Dying. To be honest the snatches of the play that we see through the regular rehearsals (held, unsurprisingly, at half past seven on a Thursday evening) it is a rather dire attempt at an Agatha Christie style murder-mystery. The real miracle is that they manage to put on a full week's worth of performances after only 6 weeks of rehearsals - seriously not going to happen with only once a week rehearsals.

As with all Roisin Meaney books, and by now I have read a few, there is only the loosest of plots with the book really being about people. The charm of her books relies almost entirely on the people that populate them. Unfortunately there are just too many people to get to know here so each one is painted with the broadest of brushstrokes and I never really felt like any of them was given sufficient page space to develop them beyond one or maybe two overarching themes.

Edward Bull is irascible, a stickler for punctuality and is still reeling from his wife's affair. We do get to see glimpses of the kinder, nicer man behind the bluff and bluster but not enough to really care about the issues in his life or to really understand why he is so conflicted.

Thea De Courcy - Loud and brash and suffering from alopecia, she works as a waitress has two children many years apart and is struggling to keep everything together. At least that was the impression I came away with, she really is only a minor character and is almost exclusively defined by her bright clothing and pink wig.

Maria - Unhappily married with an autistic son. One of the few characters we get to know a substantial amount about, most of it is sadly unremittingly grim.

Ellen - Maria's sister and the only other major character in the book. Still grieving the death of her boyfriend/fiance - I was never really sure - she has a string of one night stands and appears to hate herself. We at least get a reasonable feel for her character and she is the one who shows some character progression and a positive light.

The others Robert, Henry and Janet(?) the retiring school teacher are all pretty much caricatures rather than characters and apart from the schoolteachers prodigal son issues not really noteworthy. Robert is particularly annoying when he decides he wants his wife back after he was the one catting around but as soon as she has a sniff of a new romance and a new life for her and their twin sons he realises it was her he needed all along - infuriating man.

Either the book needed to be longer to properly explore each character or it needed paring back so that we had only 2 or 3 voices throughout with the rest of the cast and their various partners, families and work acquaintances playing peripheral roles. As it stands there are too many voices vying for page space and this leads to none of them having enough depth to absorb you in the story.

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like a child, a very stubborn child in how the story evolves and the plot thickens- and if you lack the patience to let it grow on you, then you'll probably give it a one star rating.

I was drawn to the book because it had promise of characters who had their own ghosts to deal with while putting on a brave face for the world, and that was very relatable to me. I liked the flow of it in the last twenty pages because it did bring the characters together in ways I never expected.

It's a good story, and it needs patience from a reader, of which if you have that you'll love it.

[Astrid Johanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bag kulisserne er en helt igennem fantastisk bog, hvis man lige som mig elsker Chick-lik genren. Da jeg først kom ordentlig ind i personerne, og hvordan de forskellige historier hang sammen, blev jeg så grebet af bogen, at det var umuligt at ligge den fra mig. Den var så spændende, at jeg lige blev nød til at læse den færdig før jeg lagde mig til at sove, selvom det var meningen at jeg skulle læse et kapitel, og så ligge den fra mig, men den plan faldt til jorden, da jeg blev grebet af bogen. Det er lang tid siden, jeg er blevet grebet, så meget af en chick-lik bog.

[Briana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book 4 (4.5 really but you can't do half stars) stars because it surprised me. I was expecting the normal sort of chick-lit read with not much story plot light read. This was light but it still had great character development and I liked how it flowed. I enjoyed how in 6 weeks you got to know and see glimpses into the lives of the characters. There are of some holes in the plot which I would have liked to seen fleshed out.

I also liked the the last line.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it. It was a perfect book for a bleak, cold day when I just wanted to huddle up and read. A group of very different people , from all backgrounds. all with some kind of unhappiness in their lives front up for auditions for an audition for parts in a play. All finding friendship, satisfaction, accomplishment and ultimately happier lives.

[Aileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book I have read by this Author, I was really
disappointed as the book had so many characters I found it hard to keep
up with them all, however I will look out for more books by this
Author, not sure I would recommend.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these "ensemble cast" books. This one centres around 6 characters in a play, and then we find that their lives touch and intersect off stage too.

A great read that explores relationship dynamics between people.

I always recommend Roisin Meaney's books :)

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was alright, enjoyable enough if you want to read something light but it does not warrant a second read.

[Dalreena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an awesome connection between the characters and each tells a different story. I loved it as it is catchy and you cant possibly stop from knowing more.

[Gill Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, really enjoyed it. I felt as though I knew the characters and couldn't wait to see what happened to them all.

[Sheila Hanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a lovely read. I enjoyed the character and the writing style was easy to read. Great story, I was sorry when I turned the last page.