You’d think a woman such as Marian Keyes, with a well-documented addiction problem in her past, would not be so cruel as to keep desperate fans of her books gagging for a fix for a whole two years. We could die waiting, after all. We could discover other addictions like Kafka, sporting biographies or macramé. We could even get the huff and walk sniffily past This Charming oan in the shops saying, “Well, if she thinks she can string us along all this time and expect us to fall on her the moment she appears on the shelves just because she’s finally got off her chuff and written another bestseller, that little Irish strumpet has another think coming.
or we could buy it, rush home, tell the kids to feed themselves, the husband to get lost, the phone to shut up, the housework to go to pot, settle in a quiet corner and start reading. It’s been a while, after all, and nothing feels better than a generous dose of Marian Keyes.
The filthy world of Irish politics is the backdrop for this, her ninth novel, and in the centre of it is charming politician Paddy de Courcy. He may have lovely bouffy hair and twinkly eyes but his way with the ladies is not a good way, as Lola, Grace and oarnie are already painfully aware and as ors de Courcy-to-be has yet to find out.
Told from the different characters’ points of view in alternating chapters, this is just the sort of page-turner we expect from Marian Keyes with many a belly laugh but also her trademark deep, dark thread running all the way through. And when I say it’s a generous dose, I’m not joking: it’s nearly 700 pages long. (To keep turning those pages without doing yourself a mischief, you might like to try a few yoga stretches before and after picking up This Charming oan.)
By the way, if you are getting strung out between Marian Keyes’novels, I strongly recommend taking a shifty at her website www.mariankeyes.com, especially her monthly newsletter, because it is a long time between drinks and these are very nourishing sips.
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