Author: Cathy Kelly
Performed by Caroline Lennon
Published: February 2018 by Orion
Category: Women’s Fiction, Romance, AudioBook, Review
Three women celebrate their birthdays . . . 30. 40. 50. But their milestone birthdays marks the start of a year that will change everything . . .
Ginger isn’t spending her 30th the way she would have planned. Tonight might be the first night of the rest of her life – or a total disaster.
Sam is finally pregnant after years of trying. When her waters break on the morning of her 40th birthday, she panics: forget labour, how is she going to be a mother?
Callie is celebrating her 50th at a big party in her Dublin home. Then a knock at the door mid-party turns her perfect life upside down . . .
Sam, Callie and Ginger, three women who don’t know each other and live in different places, but have one thing in common. Or two if you count the fact that they will each experience life changing events on their milestone birthdays.
As far as outward appearances go, Ginger Reilly is spirited at work, answering the quips and jokes about her weight and dress sense with a smart retort. Privately she is self-conscious and insecure, hiding her true feelings and self behind large shapeless clothes and flat shoes. She spends her thirtieth birthday, not with her family as she envisaged, but as chief bridesmaid for her best friend Liza, wearing a horrible dress, but as always she defers to her friend. Resigned to the fact no-one is likely to find her attractive, there’s a definite bright spot to Ginger’s day in the form of Stephen, who seems quite taken with her. Ginger begins to believe he might be the one for her. Could her life be turning around at last? Then she overhears a conversation that shatters her completely.
Ginger Reilly, thirty years old today, and a spinster of this parish, as her Great-Aunt Grace might say jokingly, had only ever been on one other date in her whole life. He’d been a guy from college who’d eventually asked her out to the pub. He’d then proceeded to tell her how much he fancied her college mate. End of date.
Callie Reynolds seems to have everything. Her husband Jason is throwing Callie an elaborate 50th birthday party for two hundred guests at their impressive Dublin home. Callie would have preferred a quiet dinner but Jason always feels the need to advertise his accumulated wealth. Both he and Callie had grown up poor and for Jason, money and prestige were all that mattered. Callie would have loved her family to be there but after the row years ago she hadn’t been in touch. There was also the worry and annoyance at the attitude of their spoiled fourteen year old daughter. Then mid way through the party, unexpected and unwelcome callers arrive at the door.
First, she had to get through tonight – this enormous, entirely unwanted fiftieth birthday party that Jason insisted on throwing for her.
‘People will expect it from us,’ Jason had said. ‘We’ve got an image to maintain, honey.’
Callie was sick of their damned image.
Sam Kennedy has a career she loves and a wonderful relationship with her husband Ted. They desperately want a baby and, after years of trying and several failed IVF treatments, Sam is about to give birth to their first child on her fortieth birthday. It’s all she and Ted have ever wanted but as worry, fear of being inadequate and anxieties begin to surface, Sam agonised over her ability to be a good mother. Her own mother couldn’t be further from an ideal role model–cold and distant, she has never been forthcoming with her feelings or shown genuine love to Sam and her sister.
In fact now, after a night and a morning listening to the roars and the screams of what felt like every child in Ireland, Sam decided that sleeping like a baby was a concept that had been badly misnamed: babies did not appear to sleep at all.
Sounds great, Cathy.
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It made a nice change from murder and mayhem 😉
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I love the premise of this book. Sounds like a creative way to make insightful commentary on the significant milestones in a woman’s life through compelling women’s fiction. And I like the voice in the excerpts you’ve share, which gives us a great sense of the writing. My guess is Cathy is weary with being compared to Meave Binchy!
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Very possibly, Claire. I enjoyed it anyway.
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Sound pretty good. Three different women… three very different lives…
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Yes, I couldn’t see how they would connect, then the clues….
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A lovely review of this book, Cathy. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks, Robbie x
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