A MUST-READ FOR FANS OLD AND NEW, THIS STUNNING 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION IS THE PERFECT WAY TO REDISCOVER THE 1.5 MILLION COPY, NO. 1 BESTSELLING PHENOMENON

Meet Rachel Walsh.

She’s been living it up in New York City, spending her nights talking her way into glamorous parties before heading home in the early hours to her adoring boyfriend, Luke.

But her sensible older sister showing up and sending her off to actual rehab wasn’t quite part of her plan.

She’s only agreed to her incarceration because she’s heard that rehab is wall-to-wall jacuzzis, spa treatments and celebrities going cold turkey – plus it’s about time she had a holiday.

Saying goodbye to fun and freedom will be hard – and losing the man who might just be the love of her life will be even harder.

But will hitting rock bottom help Rachel learn to love herself, at last?

Walsh Family series

1. Watermelon
2. Rachel’s Holiday
3. Angels
4. Anybody Out There
5. The Mystery of M ercy Close
6. Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family

A True Delight, Worth Re-Reading!

I first read this novel many years ago, and jumped at the chance to read it again. Just as good now as then, if not even more so!

Rachel Walsh has been living and working in New York, far from her family and her Dublin roots. Rachel has been having a high old time, blagging her way into all the glamorous parties, landing herself a good-looking boyfriend in Luke and indulging in a few party drugs – but no more than everyone else. So she doesn’t fully understand why she is on a flight to Ireland, with her straight-laced sister and brother-in-law, heading for rehab. She has only agreed to the family’s plan as everyone knows that The Cloisters is where the rich and famous go to and it is oozing luxury at every turn – isn’t it?

The thing about re-reading a novel at any time is that, at a different age and time in life, you take different thing from it, and this is certainly my experience with this one. I had a deeper understanding of Rachel’s life this time round, but let’s not forget who wrote this one; Marian Keyes knows how to grab her readers and keep them hooked to the very last! If you haven’t come across this before, I would really urge you to read the entire series, not necessarily all at once. Definitely a series worth reading (or re-reading) and the Walsh family are like no other and dazzingly entertaining to boot. And talking of boots, I did giggle at Rachel’s ‘huge’ feet at size 8 – mine are a 10! I cannot express how much I’m looking to ‘Again, Rachel’ due to be published in February 2022. This one was a true delight to read and easily worth all five sparkling stars!

My thanks to the publisher for my copy; this is – as always – my honest, original and unbiased review.

Tags: family life, humour, women’s fiction

• Format: ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook
• Size: 611 pages
• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication Date: 26 May 2005
• Book Links:
• https://www.goodreads.com
• https://play.google.com
• https://www.barnesandnoble.com
• https://uk.bookshop.org
• https://www.foyles.co.uk
• https://www.kobo.com
• https://www.whsmith.co.uk
• https://www.waterstones.com
• https://wordery.com
• https://www.amazon.co.uk

Author Details

Marian Keyes is one of the most successful Irish novelists of all time. Though she was brought up in a home where a lot of oral story-telling went on, it never occurred to her that she could write. Instead she studied law and accountancy and finally started writing short stories in 1993 “out of the blue.” Though she had no intention of ever writing a novel (“It would take too long”) she sent her short stories to a publisher, with a letter saying she’d started work on a novel. The publishers replied, asking to see the novel, and once her panic had subsided, she began to write what subsequently became her first book Watermelon, published in 1995.

To date, the woman who said she’d never write a novel has published 13 of them: Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel’s Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man, The Brightest Star in the Sky , The Mystery of Mercy Close, The Woman Who Stole My Life, and The Break.  Her books have all been bestsellers around the world, with a total of over 30 million of her books sold to date in 33 languages. Anybody Out There won the British Book Awards award for popular fiction and the inaugural Melissa Nathan Prize for Comedy Romance. This Charming Man won the Irish Book Award for popular fiction. Marian’s latest book Grown Ups is publishing in hardback and eBook in February 2020.

The books deal variously with modern ailments, including addiction, depression, domestic violence, the glass ceiling and serious illness, but always written with compassion, humour and hope.

In 2009, Marian experienced the start of a major depressive episode, and had to stop any work. Eventually she found that baking cakes helped her survive; and in 2012, she published Saved by Cake, which combines recipes with autobiography.

As well as novels she has written short stories, and articles for various magazines and other publications. She has published three collections of her journalism, titled Under the Duvet  and Further Under the Duvet, now collected in one volume under the title Under the Duvet: Deluxe Edition, and donated all royalties from Irish sales to the Simon Community, a charity which works with the homeless. In 2016 Marian published a new collection of essays, Making It Up As I Go Along.

She was born in Limerick in 1963, and brought up in Cavan, Cork, Galway and Dublin; she spent her twenties in London, but is now living in Dún Laoghaire with her husband Tony. She includes among her hobbies reading, movies, shoes, handbags and feminism.

• Website: https://www.mariankeyes.com/
• Twitter: @MarianKeyes
• Facebook: @MarianKeyes
• Instagram: @marian_keyes