Synopsis:
Lola has just found out that her boyfriend - charismatic politician Paddy de Courcy - is getting married. To someone else. Heartbroken, Lola flees the city for a cottage by the sea. But will Lola's retreat prove as idyllic as she hopes?
Journalist Grace wants the inside story on Paddy de Courcy's engagement and thinks Lola holds the key to it. Grace knew Paddy a long time ago. But why can't she forget him?
Grace's sister, Marnie, might have the answer but she also has issues with the past. Her loving loving husband and beautiful daughters are wonderful, but they can't take away memories of her first love: a certain Paddy de Courcy. What will it take for Marnie to be able to move on?
Alicia Thornton is Paddy's wife-to-be. Determined to be the perfect wife, Alicia would do anything for her fiancée. But does she know the real Paddy?
Four very different women. One awfully charming man. And the dark secret that binds them all...
My Review!
Urgh... I really don't know where to start with this review...! I love Marian Keyes books but I felt really disappointed by this one. I really struggled with this book, taking me just over 2 weeks to finish it but determined I was!
I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while and when reading the synopsis I thought it was going to be pure chick lit but I was totally wrong, I was not prepared for what this book had in store for me. Paddy de Courcy.. Charming man.. I think not!!
One of my pet peeves is the size of the chapters, the first chapter consisted of over 70 pages (wow I know!) When life intervenes and I have to stop reading for a little while I always always like to finish a chapter off, it just never feels right to stop mid chapter (it's like stopping someone speaking mid sentence) but I had to do this constantly due to the size of them!
The first chapter was the hardest to get through, we got to know Lola who is a stylist and the girlfriend of Paddy. Lola had just found out that he was now engaged to someone else 'Alicia Thornton'. Lola's chapters were written like a diary and the grammar was very poor and the writing style was not to my taste which made it difficult for me to get into the story.
Poor Lola really had been kicked to the kerb by her boyfriend so she gets away to Knockavoy where she meets lots of new friends and gets herself into some interesting situations! My jaw dropped on a few occasions while reading Lola's story.
Grace is a journalist who lives with her boyfriend Damien, thankfully the writing style was much more Marian's usual flow. Grace is very close to her parents and her aunt who is currently battling cancer. Poor Grace wasn't having a good time due to her car being stolen and she somehow had been hurt with bruising on her face although we don't find out what happened to her until the very end!
Grace is requested personally by Alicia to interview her for the engagement shoot which she does. You soon realise they know each other from when they were younger and you can clearly see there is no love lost between the two.
Marnie is the twin sister to Grace and she lives away in London with her husband Nick and her two daughters. Her first love was Paddy and throughout the book you get to know more about their toxic relationship when they were young. Marnie you could tell was a very downhearted person who seemed to be trying to keep her head above water and not sink further into depression.
Alicia who is newly engaged to Paddy is the one woman we don't get to know all that well, we only get to hear from her on only a few occasions.
We know she has connections with both Grace and Marnie, and that she has been married before to an older man who passed away. I got the feeling that there was no love between Alicia and Paddy and that the engagement was more of a business deal.
All four women have one thing in common, they all seemed to have either a past or present with the charming, controlling, abusive politician that is known as Paddy de Courcy.
I'm glad I stuck with it, it has a good plot and the characters were believable, but I did struggle with the long chapters and some of the switches from past to present.
It's one of those books where you finish the last page however the characters stay with you for a little while longer, especially Alicia... I felt her story wasn't finished off unlike the others.
I would recommend this book but I would stick a giant warning post to it so people are aware it's no light hearted chick lit book about 4 women all falling in hopeless love with a charming lovely man!
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