Watermelon - Softcover

Keyes, Marian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060090367 ISBN 13: 9780060090364

Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 2002

Synopsis

February the fifteenth is a very special day for me. It is the day I gave birth to my first child. It is also the day my husband left me...I can only assume the two events weren't entirely unrelated.

Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to their first baby, James informs her that he's leaving her. Claire is left with a newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a postpartum body that she can hardly bear to look at.

She decides to go home to Dublin. And there, sheltered by the love of a quirky family, she gets better. So much so, in fact, that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise.

About this title

Review:

Marian Keyes begins Watermelon with a rather inauspicious romantic opening when the heroine's husband leaves her for Denise from the flat downstairs the day their first child is born. Claire, the deserted wife and mother, returns to her family in Dublin and, after going through the required stages of "Loss, Loneliness, Hopelessness and Humiliation", begins to feel much better--so much better that when James tries to win his way back into her affections, he gets more than he bargained for.

The author's style is too blunt and her setting too suburban (with its all-too-human heroine struggling to keep her sanity, tend to her new-born baby, fight it out with siblings and begin to love again) to be a traditional romance, but there is enough chemistry and mystery to keep you guessing in the lip-smacking Watermelon--a dish that may not fill you up but will certainly give you a taster of Marian Keyes' work, of which there is much to sample, including Lucy Sullivan is getting Married, Rachel's Holiday and Last Chance Saloon. --Nicola Perry

Review:

Watermelon, Marian Keyes's very first novel, tells the extremely funny and wonderfully touching tale of a woman who thought she had it all - until the day she discovers that it's all gone . . .

'Failed relationships can be describe as so much wasted makeup . . .'

On the day she gives birth to her first child, Claire Walsh's husband James tells her he's been having an affair and now's the right time to leave her.

(from the publisher's description)

Keyes gives popular fiction a good name (Independent on Sunday)

Full of twists and turns, with warmth and humour on every page, it doesn't disappoint (Closer)

A smart new drama from the awesome Marian Keyes (Heat)

Not only is it a great story with funny, loveable characters, it made me laugh out loud (Stylist)

Keyes manages to have you alternately blubbing and belly-laughing to the final page (Company)

One of those rare books that will swallow up your day without realising it. Romantic and uplifting it won't fail to put a smile on your face. Marian Keyes is back to her best (The Daily Express)

A modern fairy tale, it's full of Keyes's self-deprecating wit (The Sunday Mirror)

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060090367
• ISBN 13: 9780060090364
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432