Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 391 - 15 September 2007
Irish Romance Fiction
A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
Paperback; 9 Euro / 13 USD / 6.50 UK 486 pages
The magical new novel from the number 1 bestselling author of PS, I Love You, Where Rainbows End and If You Could See Me Now. Ever since the day her classmate Jenny-May Butler vanished, Sandy Shortt has been haunted by what happens when something - or someone - disappears. Finding has become her goal. Jack Ruttle is desperate to find his younger brother Donal who vanished into thin air a year ago. So then he spots an ad for Sandy's missing persons agency, he's certain that she will answer his prayers and find his missing brother. But then Sandy disappears too, stumbling upon a place that is a world away from the only one she has ever known. Now all she wants, more than anything, is to find her way home.
Finding Ava by Kathy Rodgers
Trade Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 410 pages [Add To Basket]
Ava Dimato has never felt quite comfortable in her privileged life among Boston's élite. As the only daughter, her life is controlled by the protective men of the Dimato clan. But on her father s death, she discovers something that turns her world upside down: she is not who she thought she was. Her quest to find her true identity sends her hurtling from the arms of her married lover and her comfortable New England life into the murky past of Catholic Ireland and Boston's seedy underbelly. The truths she uncovers are difficult and disturbing; nothing is as it seems. But only in discovering where she came from can she truly come home.
Confessions of an Air Hostess by Marisa Mackle
Paperback; 7 Euro / 10 USD / 5 UK; 276 pages
Bestselling Irish writer Marisa Mackle comes to "Little Black Dress" with a hilarious, romantic and page-turning book about the air hostess to end all air hostesses...Poor Annie. Dumped by her boyfriend via text this morning while en route to the airport, she can think of better things to do than stand on a plane demonstrating emergency procedure and pointing out low-level lighting to hundreds of uninterested passengers. But what's a cabin-crew gal to do when her love life hits turbulence? Annie bravely resolves to keep smiling through her fake tan - while there's still a plane to catch, there's still pastures new to discover. And one of these days she's sure to really meet Mr Right. Isn't she? A great love story and a fantastic, loveable heroine combine to make this a romantic novel that's simply not to be missed.
Absolute Beginners by Mairead O’Driscoll
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 560 pages [Add To Basket]
Lucy Dalton wants to escape her frumpy, mundane life. Her job is boring, her social life non-existent and her mother is still trying to make her into the wonderful daughter she s always dreamed of. Pampered Rosa Mooney is a walking disaster at whatever career she tries. Sick of being treated like a child, she is determined to be taken seriously at last. Kate Lewis has fled her old life for the tranquillity of running a small health store, having blown her chance at happiness. But can she heal her guilt for a tragedy in her past? And Agnes Cotter has been at the beck and call of bullying sister Beatrice for years. The genteel persona that she presents to the world masks a life of drudgery and bitterness. None of them expect, when they sign up for a gourmet cookery course, that learning to cook will be the best therapy any of them could ever hope for. Can these absolute beginners find new beginnings?
As Easy As That by Mary O’Sullivan
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 503 pages
Kate Lucas is happy. She is married to advertising exec Fred and works as personal assistant to the leading trial lawyer in the country. A member of the smart set, Kate believes that having a baby is all she needs now for total fulfilment. That is until a tragic accident reveals her circle friends in a new and shockingly deceitful light. As proof of immoral and illegal behaviour unfolds, Kate is forced to find answers to some very difficult questions. Her quest for the truth leads her from Ireland to Budapest. Along the way her relationship with her husband weakens while her relationship with her boss grows into something far more than loyalty to her employer. Kate's journey leads her back to her home-place where she eventually finds true happiness with the man she loves.
High Potential by Ber Carroll
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 442 pages
When Sydney lawyer Kylie Horgan meets Jim Donnelly it's love at first sight - at least as far as she's concerned! He's handsome, funny brilliant and like her parents, Irish. The only problem is that he already has a girlfriend... When she is sent to Ireland by her firm, Kylie happily leaves her nit-picking boss Neil and settles into life in Dublin where she works in a clinic providing advice to the homeless, makes a great new friend in Mags and has a terrific social life. And the icing on the cake is when Jim Donnelly comes home on a visit... Then disaster strikes and there's many a shock in store for Kylie as everyone - including her parents - shows their true colours and Kylie learns that life and love are not as black and white as she always thought!
Ship of Dreams by Martina Devlin
Trade Paperback with endflaps; 15 Euro / 20 USD / 10 UK; 410 pages [Add To Basket]
A group of people meet on one of Titanic's lifeboats, saved from death by random chance. These survivors, drawn from different nationalities and walks of life, have only one factor in common: all have survived a tragedy that captures the world s imagination. This thread binds them together when they are rescued and taken to New York. Two of the survivors are Irish emigrants hoping to make a new life for themselves. Both have a secret: one is carrying a baby and the other has buried a baby. Also on board is a beautiful American girl who has scaled New York society to marry the heir to a hotel fortune. But her gilded life is threatened when he drowns. Then there is the French gentleman s secretary with ambitions to better himself, a US Cavalry officer convinced his dead wife intervened to rescue him, and an English teacher plucked from the sea by the Irish girls. The story follows them from rescue to arrival in New York, centre of their hopes and expectations. But certainties have been shattered and life in the Titanic s wake can never be the same again.
The Light of Evening by Edna O’Brien
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 348 pages [Add To Basket]
Edna O'Brien returns to the world of her debut novel, The Country Girls, in an inspired account of a dying mother and her daughter. From her hospital bed in Dublin, the elderly Dilly awaits the visit of her daughter, Eleanora, from London. The epochs of her life pass before her; emigrating to America in the 1920s, a romantic liaison she had there, the destiny that brought her back to Ireland, and her marriage. She also retraces Eleanora's precipitate marriage to a foreigner, and Dilly's heart-rending letters sent over the years in a determination to reclaim her daughter. Eleanora's visit does not prove to be the glad reunion that it might have been and, in her sudden departure, she leaves behind the secret journal of their stormy relationship. The Light of Evening is a novel of dreams and broken dreams but, at its core, is the realisation that the bond between mother and child is unbreakable, stronger even than death.
The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 226 pages [Add To Basket]
A classic title in Edna O'Brien's Country Girls Trilogy - the first volume. It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend Baba are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world; of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin - where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world
The Girl with Green Eyes by Edna O’Brien
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 246 pages [Add To Basket]
The second volume in the Country Girls Trilogy. From eccentric Joanna's boarding house, predatory Baba roams Dublin looking for men to give her a good time - and dragging with her a reluctant Cait, worrying about her figure and wanting to talk about books. Then she meets dark, long-faced Eugene Gaillard, a film director, and for a while Cait's romantic dreams seem to be fulfilled. But Eugene Gaillard is a Protestant divorce, and when Cait's drunkard father gets to hear of it, he summons a lynch mob Steering expertly between high romance, outright farce and the blend of them that is reality, Girl with Green Eyes is an original and joyful story of the gateway to adulthood.
Girls in their Married Bliss by Edna O’Brien
Paperback; 10 Euro / 14 USD / 7 UK; 166 pages [Add To Basket]
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.
Please note: Prices were correct at time of original posting but are subject to subsequent change without notice.
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