The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 4 days

Pages - 508

Publisher - Penguin books

Source - Bought

Blurb from Goodreads

Helen Walsh doesn’t believe in fear – it’s just a thing invented by men to get all the money and good job – and yet she’s sinking. Her work as a Private Investigator has dried up, her flat has been repossessed and now some old demons have resurfaced.

Not least in the form of her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who shows up with a missing persons case. Money is tight – so tight Helen’s had to move back in with her elderly parents – and Jay is awash with cash. The missing person is Wayne Diffney, the ‘Wacky One’ from boyband Laddz. He’s vanished from his house in Mercy Close and it’s vital that he’s found – Laddz have a sell-out comeback gig in five days’ time.

Things ended messily with Jay. And she’s never going back there. Besides she has a new boyfriend now, the very sexy detective Artie Devlin and it’s all going well, even though his ex-wife isn’t quite ‘ex’ enough and his teenage son hates her. But the reappearance of Jay is stirring up all kinds of stuff she thought she’d left behind.

Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly the only person she feels connected to is Wayne, a man she’s never even met.



My Review

So I think the first thing I would say is this book is a bit darker in some of the themes than any of her others, well that I remember. Don't get me wrong there is still some laughs, hilarity, some oh no she/they didn't and jaw dropper moments. However the book centers around Helen Walsh and she is a very unique individual. She doesn't seem to have a filter, she struggles to gel with people, she is abrupt, brutally honest and has mental health issues. Now I don't often put trigger warnings, I do tend to highlight themes without spoilers but I am putting a trigger warning here so if you have issues with dark mental health/self harm - stop reading here.

Helen is a private detective, she is dealing with some personal problems and the work and focus is good for her. Her new assignment is helping track down a member of a previous very popular boyband member, the band is getting back together (minus the one who burst to great stardom) and now Wayne is missing. We follow Helen tracking him down, working with her ex boyfriend, awks much, looking for a famous dude and trying to keep the black dog (depression) at bay.

The investigation is interesting and how she manages to work the case and juggle so much in her personal life. The mental health stuff, her struggles with her depression, how her family reacts to it and how she herself deals with it. The book jumps around a wee bit and I think that helps to cement the way Helen is and how she gets through her day to day life. I think Keyes does great infusing humour with some really tough/harsh real life topics. Depression, self harm and all the darkness that can go with it is throughout the book along with infidelity, splashes of humour, regular and dark, family and obvs the missing celebrity. We get a peak into how the world of celebrity looks through Helen's eyes and the access she gets through her job.

I don't really know how I feel about this one, I liked parts of it, I think if you have had a history of depression or had any battles with mental health you will take something different. Understanding, empathy, maybe even just feeling "seen" because despite this being a fictional character/book the author has done due diligence with the topics, if you know you know. Overall 3.5/5 for me this time, I am missing gaps in the Walsh books I am sure so I need to catch up with them. Yes I have read them out of order *twitch* but they can pretty much be standalones.

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The One I Love by Anna McPartlin

The One I Love by Anna McPartlin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 1 day

Pages - 355

Publisher - Penguin

Blurb from Goodreads

LETTING GO FOR GOOD . . .

Once, Jane Moore and Alexandra Walsh were inseparable, sharing secrets and stolen candy, plotting their futures together. But when Jane became pregnant at seventeen, they drifted slowly apart. Jane has spent the years since raising her son, now seventeen himself, on her own, running a gallery, managing her sister’s art career, and looking after their volatile mother—all the while trying not to resent the limited choices life has given her.

Then a quirk of fate and a faulty elevator bring Jane into contact with Tom, Alexandra’s husband, who has some shocking news. Alexandra disappeared from a south Dublin suburb months ago, and Tom has been searching fruitlessly for her. Jane offers to help, as do the elevator’s other passengers—Jane’s brilliant but self-absorbed sister, Elle, and Leslie Sheehan, a reclusive web designer who’s ready to step back into the world again. And as Jane quickly realizes, Tom isn’t the only one among them who’s looking for something . . . or traveling toward unexpected revelations about love, life, and what it means to let go, in every sense.

In this insightful and irresistible novel, by turns profound, poignant, and laugh- out-loud funny, acclaimed Irish writer Anna McPartlin tells a story of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and the ones we create for ourselves, and of the hope and strength that remain when we fi nd the courage to leave the past behind at last.


My Review

Alexandra Walsh is missing, gone out to pick up tickets and then nothing, no contact, just gone. Jane Moore was once her best friend, but like a lot of friendships, life and events saw them separate. A chance meeting at a concert brings Alexandra's husband into contact with Jane, Jane's sister Elle & Leslie. After being trapped together in a lift, they decide they will help Tom to try and find Alexandra. Elle is a loose cannon, a liability but a fantastic artist who has many demons she needs to address. Leslie has lost so many of her family to cancer, she tested for the gene and has decided the best way to be safe is to keep a distance from people & family. This chance meeting will see them all come together and in helping Tom expose themselves to friendship and self exploration and personal growth.

There is a lot about this story I liked, when someone disappears you want to know what has happened. Relationships forming and learning more about the characters, some happiness, some sadness and some laughter in between. People coming together, growth of characters and vesting interest is always a great art created by some very talented authors. What didn't I like? There are themes of infidelity, some codes broken that as friends and or family you just wouldn't do, lines you do not cross. However, in saying that, it does happen and brings realism to the story, I still personally do not like it.

Yet another good tale by McPartlin, I enjoy meeting and following the characters she creates. I really wanted to know what happened to Alexandra and getting to know the characters followed secondary to that. Once the story got kick started, you find yourself being drawn in and not wanting to put the book down so you can find where their paths are going. 3/5 for me this time, I will continue to buy up this authors work although my favourite still remains, The Last Days Of Rabbit Hayes.

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No Way To Say Goodbye by Anna McPartlin

No Way to Say Goodbye by Anna McPartlin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 10 days on and off

Pages - 344

Publisher - Penguin Books

Blurb from Goodreads

You only get one second chance ...

Mary Mackey has endured so much loss in her twenty-nine years that people call her 'Mary of the Sorrows'. Mary has settled for a humdrum existence, a life lived apart from the crowd. That way she hopes to avoid further grief.

Her friends - Penny, Ivan and Adam - seem more together but they are just as damaged. Penny's loneliness, Ivan's cowardice and Adam's duplicity are all signs of lives going off the tracks.

When a mysterious American moves in beside Mary, her friends are intrigued but she tries to avoid him. Little can they guess that his wounds run at least as deep as theirs, and that his arrival in town will challenge each of them to face their demons. And it will force Mary to decide if she can take a chance on living again …



My Review

Mary, Penny, Ivan & Adam are our main characters, a close knit group. Mary has had her share of hurt and them some, Penny has a problem with alcohol but no one is calling her on it, Ivan has his own problems going on and Adam is married but in love and cheating with Penny. They all have things going on in their lives when Sam, an American with his own troubled past moves into the village.

This story is set in Kenmare, Ireland. It portrays a tale of sadness, friendship, hope, love, loss, relationships and a close knit community. Mary needs to learn to trust and allow people into her life, Sam is successful in the music world but running from his dark past. The two have a mutual attraction but both refusing to acknowledge it. There is so so much going on in this story including child abuse, drink driving and child death which some readers may find hard to read. Overall it is a story of multiple friendships, small town gossip and people trying to deal with their past whilst dealing with current demons and secrets.

McPartlin has a gift of writing a tale of relationships whilst infusing some humour, serious issues and bringing characters to life that are, some endearing and others loathsome. Whilst I did enjoy this one I don't think it has a patch on some of her other writing. 3/5 for me this time, I will be reading more by this author.

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ARC - The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me by Lucy Robinson

The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me by Lucy Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 4 days

Source - RealReaders

Publisher - Penguin books

Pages - 488 (uncorrected proof)

Blurb from Goodreads

Sally is an incredible singer but she sings only in her wardrobe where nobody can hear her. She'd rather join a nudist colony than sing in public.

That is until she ventures to New York where a wild and heady summer of love and loss changes her forever. No longer able to hide in the shadows, Sally must return home to London to fulfill a promise she cannot break - to share her voice.

But just as she's about to embark on her new life, a beautiful man turns up on Sally's doorstep bearing a sheepish smile and a mysterious hand-written message.

How did he find her? Why is he here? Does he hold the truth to what happened back in New York? And, with him back on the scene, will she still have the courage to step into the spotlight?



My Review

Sally Howlett is our quirky main character, we meet her in the opening chapter with her teddy, after hiding out most of the day in her wardrobe. Sally does that, flees to her wardrobe when she is worried, needs time or is doing her number one thing in the world, singing. Coming from an estate, a family who like no fuss or standing out, it has been hard for her to sing anywhere else but the safety of her wardrobe. However, events have brought us to this moment and Sally is panicking, she has signed up to go to college and sing opera, she has an amazing talent and beautiful voice but has always had to shut it away. After a traumatic event in her past, she is bound by her word to share her talents and pursue it but there is so much in the way. Things from her past she would rather let go, always pleasing everyone but herself, her families utterly against such a pursuit and the biggest of them all, her crippling fear of anyone hearing her sing. Can Sally keep her word and do her diploma at the Royal College of Music, can she utter a note outside her wardrobe? Any why now, of all times, has the man from her past shown up to turn her world upside down. Sally will need to dig deep to deal with all the challenges she is faced with or forever hid in the safety of her wardrobe!

I honestly didn't think reading the blurb that I would like this novel. I was intrigued about the beautiful gentleman from her past but the whole music thing just didn't seem like it would interest me. I was wrong, very wrong! It is funny how you can relate to someone or something in a book that you, at first glance, could never imagine any comparison with at all. Sally grew up in an estate, opera is not something you expect one to be interested in let alone be able to engage with or produce the beauty that it is. Sally has such negative experiences and attitudes by those she loves she must lock it away, almost as a dirty secret. So now as an adult, to embrace it, to do something that goes against her core, pleasing everyone but herself, it is unthinkable. However Sally has depths and is learning and growing whilst having to face some of the most hurtful moments of her past, to deal with her promising future.

This book was a delight to read, there are so many levels to it, self growth, love, hurt, family dysfunction, betrayal, talent and that is only some of the themes. You will find yourself laughing out loud at some of the scenes, especially one or two with the fabulous Jan Borsos, it is naughty, funny, tongue in cheek and despite some mentions of sex, there is a beautiful innocence to some of the story. Sometimes the language they use toward each other felt, to me, a little out of place or young as they are performers, talented, educated and it just seemed like how a younger generation communicate rather than adults. However that said, it does work especially for Sally who is quite innocent despite being the mother role for Fiona, her hell raiser cousin, sister and best friend.

The time frame jumps around so it takes a while to discover what happened with Sally and the beautiful stranger who turns up at her door. To peel through the present day and some of the issues Sally carries with her and why she behaves as she does now. It is quite well signposted so you can follow the jumps in time well and slowly the back story is revealed. I have read this author before and would read her again, you can get your hands on this book from the 19th of June, 2014. Thank you so much to RealReaders for sending me this book, which I would certainly have passed over and missed out on a lovely tale, don't make that mistake and deprive yourself.

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