Rose Miller married well and has spent 40 years taking care of her husband in the small town of Kinvarra, Ireland. As her ruby anniversary party approaches, she begins to reevaluate her priorities, although she doesn't discuss her plans with anyone. Her sister-in-law, Adele, has always felt lucky to have been born rich, although Aunt Adele's tactless comments have made her spinster life somewhat lonely. Adele idolizes her brother, Rose's husband, and is also jealous of the three perfect girls that Rose has raised.

The oldest of the three daughters, Stella, works as a lawyer and raises her daughter alone, content with celibacy and motherhood. She isn't looking for a romantic relationship when she meets an attractive client who's also a divorced father. Although she falls quickly in love with Nick, his daughters and ex-wife have other plans.

Middle daughter Tara seems to lead an exciting life as a writer for a popular evening soap opera, but life with new husband Finn has become one unending drunken blur. Tara focuses on her career and tries to hide her desperation from her family and coworkers, while avoiding Finn's bitter and blaming mother and unexplained family secrets.

Holly is the baby of the family, overshadowed by her older sisters and never realizing or believing that she's beautiful and talented. Holly feels like a disappointment to her mother, and she's almost paralyzed by shyness and self-doubt. Holly is closest to her flat-mates, and they all work in fashion, although Joan is a design school student, Kenny is a fashion stylist and Holly works retail at a department store. Her friends try to set her up with men, but Holly has never recovered from an early dating disappointment.

Told in vignettes throughout Dublin and the surrounding area, this novel creates a large network of believable and interesting characters. Initially, it was hard to warm to the story because of the large cast of characters, which built slowly over the first quarter of the book. Much like the soap opera for which Tara writes, each storyline and set of characters create their own dramatic tension. Flipping between the story lines serves to heighten the suspense in scenes of otherwise subdued and typical family crisis. With so many plots to follow, I preferred certain stories (like Holly's battle to gain self-confidence) over others (like the alcoholism or infidelity plots). All of the storylines were well-developed, and since everyone here was part of a larger family, the intertwining of plots kept me interested throughout the novel. JUST BETWEEN US is an excellent family saga that captures the romance and search for satisfaction that mothers, daughters, sisters and friends all face.