IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN, contains 16 short stories, all written by Irish female writers, including Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes. The stories range from light and funny to dark and poignant. As with most story collections, there are some real gems and there are also a couple of stories that were ok, bordering on boring. But that doesn't detract from the overall enjoyability of the book.

IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN starts out with "Soulmates" by Marian Keyes. I'm a huge fan of Keyes, and she doesn't disappoint here. "Soulmates" features Georgia and Joel, a couple so perfect that their friends alternate between jealousy, bitterness and awe of them. Next is "De-Stress" by Joan O'Neill, a story about Alex, a girl recently dumped by her boyfriend. After moping about her friend's house she goes out, gets her life together and meets a new man. I loved the fascinating "Twenty-Eighth Day" by Catherine Barry. This is a story about a woman who suffers from PMT. I also enjoyed "Thelma, Louise, and the Lurve Gods" by Cathy Kelly. It's about two girls who go on a holiday and unexpectedly are forced to share a car and hotel with two hunky guys. "About That Night" by Sarah Webb features Shona and Kate, two friends of completely different temperaments who fly out to a friend's wedding in a small village. Shona is completely awful to Kate and her friends, going so far as to divulge a personal and shameful secret of Kate's in front of a guy that Kate likes. "The Cup Runneth Over" by Julie Parsons is about a woman who falls in love with her married professor and becomes totally fascinated with both him and his wife. This story has an interesting twist to it, and Julie Parsons is a fantastic storyteller who will keep your interest gripped. "Moving" by Collette Caddle is a touching story about Sara, a woman who settles down with a guy who is "nice" (but someone she isn't in love with) because her heart had been broken by another man who had turned out to be married.

The sixteen authors in this book offer their own unique perspective of womanhood, friendship, relationships and families through their stories. You'll find all types of Chick-Lit in this book - some a little light, some deep and dark, some engrossing and satisfying. Highly recommended!

I am a fan of short stories and IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN was certainly not a disappointment. This book is a collection of sixteen short stories of the newest and best Irish women writers of pop fiction. Each story is focused on some aspect of a woman's love or involvement with a man. Many are written with smart insights and witty humor which I enjoyed much. Among them there are several that resonated with me after I put the book down including "Soulmates" by Marian Keyes (envy is a negative human quality); "The Twenty-Eighth Day" by Catherine Barry (a very funny take on PMS); "The Cup Runneth Over" by Julie Parsons (marital affairs can burn both conspiring partners); "The Ring Cycle" by Martina Devlin (a wedding ring just won't go away); and "The Unlovable Woman" by Annie Sparrow (sometimes the best things are right before our eyes).

IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN is an excellent means to get acquainted with Irish women authors who you may have previously been unfamiliar with. At the end of each story there is a short bio which makes it easy to pursue other works by authors that you enjoyed. In addition, there are also authors that are already well known such as Maeve Binchy. Another good quality of IRISH GIRLS ABOUT TOWN is that all benefits goes towards charity. As explained in the book's forward, The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Barnardo's are two organizations that brings great benefits to the people of Ireland, Britian and the world. Read this book, and you may just be as entertained as I was. Enjoy!

What brilliant idea to have Ireland's most gifted female writers put together in a gem of a book! Irish Girls About Town is every chick lit enthusiast's dream come true. My favorite stories are the ones from Marian Keyes, Maeve Binchy and Cathy Kelly. However, newcomer Marisa Mackle's "Girls' Weekend" is the best one out of the bunch. I was so impressed with her sharp wit that I purchased her debut novel, Mr. Right for the Night. This book is a true gem and I couldn't recommend it enough!

I read this story a couple of days after I read Watermelon (also by Marian Keyes) and I liked it even better. Rachel's Holiday is a perfect choice if you are looking for some quality light reading. Keyes still uses the same technique as in Watermelon, where Rachel talks directly to us and therefor is our only source of information about herself in the first half of the book. Later we get some more information about her trough the metings with others. It is written in the same chatty, humorous tone that makes all of Keyes' novels such a pleasure to read, but this story is a little different and a little more daring.

When we first meet her, she is about to be admitted to the Cloisters, a Irish sort of Betty Ford Clinic. She is in denial. Anyone who has had personal experience with addicts (of one kind or another) will recognize how they may fool you (and sometimes themselves). In the first part of the book, she seems pretty shallow and definitely a bit dense, but she grows as a person through her therapy and her friendships with other recovering addicts. Rachel has not really got a clue about who she is in the beginning and why she is becoming an addict. She develops as a person in and trough the story and grows to become something more than a cartoon figure or a heroine of a cheap weekly magazine story. Keyes has written this story with much fine humor and I laughed out loud many times to the great fun of those who were around me.

Two warnings: Highbrows who do not enjoy light reading should stay away from this book and secondly if you do not like happy endings of any kind, please also stay away from this book.

I picked up this book to read only knowing that is was supposed to be similar to Bridget Jones's Diary. As I read it, I realized that the two books really didn't have much in common, but this book was amazing in its own right.

Rachel's "holiday" is actually a 2-month stay in drug rehab. I really liked the way we only saw her life through Rachel's eyes, until slowly she came to the realization that she did have a problem. Drug addiction is something that so many people can relate to...whether you've been through it yourself or know someone who has. Keyes tackles this issue with wit and sympathy. I felt so sorry for Rachel during her denial and so happy as she began to see herself the way her loved ones did.

Despite its heavy subject, this book is still a light summer beach read. Almost every page contains a laughable scene, and there is an element of romance woven throughout the story. I highly recommend this book, and Keyes's companion piece "Watermelon", whose main subject is Rachel's sister Clare.

Rachel's Holiday is Marian Keyes second vist to the Walsh family in Ireland. This book centres around the middle sister Rachel, who has been living the fast life in New York and accidently overdoses one night. Whilst in her drug hazed state, she decides to practice her poetry, which is mistaken for a suicide note (such is her talent.) She then awakes in hospital and is promtly whisked home to her mammy who takes her straight to Cloisters, the local 'mentallers' dry out clinic.

There begins an extremely funny, insightful, and often touching story of Rachel and her road to recovery. She is convinced that she doesn't belong in Cloisters (her near suicide wasn't INTENTIONAL) and that she will leave the second that she is free to go. As long as she has never beat a family member about the head with a broken bottle or shot up heroin (smoking it is an entirely different matter) she believes that she is world's apart from her fellow in-mates. However, many revelations are in store for Rachel, and her life could change in way she has never imagined. That is, if she allows herself to admit that musical chairs with a few brown cardigan wearers CAN be fun (ish), even without the use of a narcotic of two. Rachel's Holiday is a fantastic read, that is both highly entertaining and extremely thought-provoking. Get it if you can..

Watermelon was a fun book to read -- I finished it in a day. But after reading Keyes's Lucy Sullivan, I was disappointed in Watermelon. Although both books had many of the same elements, I had a hard time relating to Watermelon's Claire. Claire's husband tells her that he is leaving her while she is in the hospital, having just delivered their first child. Claire flies home to her parents and sisters with her new baby and begins to heal. Only Marian Keyes can make a plot like this with laugh out loud humor. This is a book about heartbreak, survival and the importance of loving and supportive family.

I really can't add anything to the rest of the reviews, but I have to add my praise. When you consider that this was Marian Keyes' first novel, it's all the more astounding. Funny, poignant, sexy ' it has it all. Claire is a likeable heroine ' she's not perfect, but she's not a real pain that you have to struggle to like (as is her little sister Rachel in the equally wonderful 'Rachel's Holiday'). Claire stumbles around (and who wouldn't in her place?) but ultimately learns how to deal with life on her own (with her beautiful baby, despite what horrible sister Helen says!) The only marks of 'first novel' are the men ' James turns out to be a horrid, pathetic person and we don't really get any insight early on to this. Adam is a bit too, too, too good to be true ' but that's OK. Keyes' paints a more rounded picture of Claire, her sisters, and her mother. (In 'Lucy Sullivan' and 'Rachel's Holiday' Keyes manages to round out all of her characters better, but the humor and 'romance' gets darker than it is in 'Watermelon'). All in all, Keyes turns out magnificent books ' full of humor, quirky characters, and lessons about life. I highly recommend this book as a starting place ' but don't stop here! I can hardly wait to read Last Chance Saloon.

Having already read LAST CHANCE SALOON and LUCY SULLIVAN IS GETTING MARRIED, I continue to be thrilled at the biting edge of dark humor Marian Keyes brings to chick lit. She lifts these books up from a banal girl-looking-for-guy novel and gives then something more, namely unforgettable characters the reader truly comes to care about.

Who could be more vulnerable than Claire whose husband James tells her on the day she gives birth to their first-born that he is leaving her for another woman in their apartment building? Thus begins Claire's often sad, often comical, but always interesting saga. She grabs her newborn and flies from London to the safe harbor of her parents home in Dublin. There we meet her hilarious mother and father as well as two of her four sisters: the self-involved Helen and the lovably flakey Anna. (Guess Rachel was busy starring in RACHEL'S HOLDIAY and MAGGIE was caught up in her story as told in ANGELS.) The Walsh family is not a model family, but it is one that you'll love being a part of --- the fights, the squabbles, the sisterly ritual of stealing clothes from one another, the tension amidst the camaraderie, the freezer with frozen food and the mother's aversion to home-cooked meals---all make Claire's stay less than peaceful.

Will she ever come to terms with what has happened to her? Can she pull herself up from her quagmire of despair over losing James? Can she be a fit and loving mother to Kate? Will she stop toying with the idea of stealing her sister's boyfriend and just go ahead and do it? Will Claire come to her senses and tell James off for good or will she go back to him?

Claire will steal your heart as her easy, conversational tone speaks to you just as she would to her best friend, in a breezy, self-deprecating style that keeps you eagerly turning the pages.

Being in the Last Chance Saloon scares the characters in this novel by Marian Keyes.

There's Katherine who is responsible, beautiful and tidy but endures relationship after relationship of failure and decides to take on an "ice queen" air about her. Katherine's friends joke with her that she has fabulous matching bra and panty sets but nobody to see her in them.
There's also Tara who is battling a slight weight problem and is in a dead-end relationship with Thomas who constantly monitors her eating and criticizes her weight. Once, Tara ate a whole loaf of bread and rushed out to buy another loaf before Thomas realized her binge. Tara, afraid of ending up in the Last Chance Saloon, refuses to leave Thomas and keeps making excuses for why he is the way he is.
Then there's fashion-conscious Fintan who has been in a serious and happy relationship with his "Italian pony" boyfriend, Sandro. But Fintan fears he is also in the Last Chance Saloon when he is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

Over a course of a year the three friends must pull together and lend advice to face their fears of ending up alone or in Fintan's case, dead.

The author created a couple of sub-plots throughout the novel which had me wondering about their importance to the story, but in the end the sub-plots all tied together to the story's climax and twistful ending.

This was my first Marian Keyes novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were funny, real and likeable. While reading this novel I was so enthralled to learn what would happen to the three friends and how their dilemma would all work out. I was sad to see the novel end but the author does an excellent job of wrapping it up.

After reading Last Chance Saloon, I will definitely be putting more Marian Keyes novels on my to-be-read list.

Being in the Last Chance Saloon scares the characters in this novel by Marian Keyes.

There's beautiful, responsible, tidy Katherine who endures relationship after relationship of failure and decides to take on an "ice queen" air about her. Katherine's friends joke with her that she has fabulous matching bra and panty sets but nobody to see her in them.

There's also Tara who is battling a slight weight problem and in a dead-end relationship with Thomas who constantly monitors her eating and criticizes her weight. Once, Tara ate a whole loaf of bread and rushed out to buy another loaf before Thomas realized her binge. Tara, afraid of ending up in the Last Chance Saloon, refuses to leave Thomas and keeps making excuses for the way he is.

Then there's fashion-conscious Fintan who has been in a serious and happy relationship with his "Italian pony" boyfriend, Sandro. But Fintan fears he is also in the Last Chance Saloon when he is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

Over a course of a year the three friends must pull together and lend advice to face their fears of ending up alone or in Fintan's case, dead.

The author created a couple of sub-plots throughout the novel which had me wondering about their importance to the story, but in the end the sub-plots all tied together to the story's climax and twistful ending.

This was my first Marian Keyes novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were funny, real and likeable. While reading this novel I was so enthralled to learn what would happen to the three friends and how their dilemma would all work out. I was sad to see the novel end but the author does an excellent job of wrapping it up.

After reading Last Chance Saloon, I will definitely be putting more Marian Keyes novels on my to-be-read list.

The sand is still in my copy! Marian Keyes is definitely one of my favorite authors! She's so good at writing an engaging story.
We meet three best friends, Tara, Katherine, and Fintan. They each have their own battles to face. Tara is living with her verbally abusive boyfriend and is afraid to leave him. Katherine is terrified of needing and depending on someone. Fintan is lucky in love, but he is now faced with a life altering situation that will affect all three of them. The trio has to pull together and in doing so, they realize how lucky they are to have each other.
This is a lovely book! Keyes has a talent for blending touching drama with hilarious, but very realistic moments. It was a change for this book to be written in third person, but I didn't care about the characters any less. This book is everything I've come to expect from this incredible author. I look forward to her next one!

I have read all of Keyes' books, and this is my favorite. Maybe just because it is closer to my own experience, but I really enjoyed the characters being women whose work was a part of their life, and whose lives didn't seem to begin every day after work with hours in a pub. (Personally, I don't know anyone who drinks as much as the women in all the Brit Chicks books -- it seems like their primary activity). anyway, I loved this book; you can read the synopsis in the canned review.

Having read Marian Keyes's previous books, I knew I had to get my hands on this one. I was not disappointed. Once again, Keyes writes a wonderful novel that mixes a dark plot with sharp and witty situations.

Sushi for Beginners, like Last Chance Saloon, focuses on various characters in third person narrative. Set in Dublin, Lisa, an ambitious Londoner, has been given the task of launching a new fashion magazine for Irish women. After she somewhat recuperates from the initial culture shock, she meets some rather eccentric characters at work. She decides she dislikes Ashling, the sweet deputy editor, and develops a crush on Jack Devine, the Managing Director and notorious maverick. What develops is a tale of betrayal, deceit and heartbreak. One of these people is on the verge of a nervous breakdown... Who will it be?

The focal point of this novel is depression. Ashling suffers a bout of the aforementioned mental illness when Clodagh, her best friend, shows her true colors. Ashling's world captivated and spoke to me. What I love about Marian Keyes is that she mixes tender romance with a serious subject matter that readers could relate to. I love the wit in this novel -- much more subtle than her previous efforts. I also love all of the secondary characters -- namely Trix, Dylan and Jack Devine. As mentioned, Sushi for Beginners is my favorite Keyes novel. Highly recommended...

Marian Keyes does it again with "Sushi For Beginners". This talented Irish author tackles the world of fashion magazines with her new tale, and does it with her usual charm and humor.

The backdrop of "Colleen" magazine is the perfect place to set up the main characters. First you have Londonite and fashionably dressed Lisa Edwards, who thinks that her life is over when she is shipped off to the great north to be the editor of this new magazine with a the smallest staff known to man, no perks, and well ---- it's in Ireland (which she thinks is a fate worse than death.)

The bright spot is the really sweet (sometimes overly sweet) Ashling Kennedy. Ashling is everything that Lisa is not. She's not fashionable, she's not worldly, she's not --- well, posh. But, she's the foundation of this book and really the driving force behind this great tale of work, love and friendships.

I don't think there is a better author out there than Marian Keyes and she didn't let me down with this one. I love "Sushi for Beginners" and would suggest it to any lover of this genre or great fiction in general.

Cheers!!!!!!

When I buy a paperback book with a brightly colored cover and a title like: "Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married", this is what I expect: a lighthearted comedy about a slightly shallow, single, city-dwelling, young woman and her love life.
So when I read, "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" I was a little confused. Paperback, Pretty Cover, Cutsie name...so what is this? A heroine with bouts of depression? Alcoholic fathers? Broken Homes? How...how...realistic!
Yes, that is my main complaint about Marian Keyes witty yet occasionally grim novel; "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" it is far too realistic.
Set in downtown London, the book stars (surprise, surprise) Lucy Sullivan, an insecure, nine to five worker with an infamously unsuccessful love life which takes an interesting twist when a fortune-teller predicts that she will get married within the year.
Keyes' style is intelligent and funny, and her characters are likable and diverse. However, as I said before, this book is not the light piece of fiction is appears. Lucy suffers from depression and major insecurity and around three-quarters of the way through; the book takes a strange and unexpectedly dark turn.
I liked it, but while I originally thought that it belonged to the same category of books as the 'Shopaholic' series, I now see that it is quite different.

Twenty-six year old self-pitying Lucy Sullivan will captue your heart and make you laugh in Marian Keyes' "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married". Though the book is not serious or deep, it is light-hearted fun for women everywhere.

Meet Lucy, who wallows in a dead-end job and lack of self-confidence. One night, she and three of her co-workers, the rich yet boring Hetty, the gigantic Meredia, and the laid-back sharp-tongued Megan, travel to the outskirts of London to have their tarot cards read. When Mrs. Nolan predicts that Lucy will be married within eighteen months, she sets out on a journey to find the perfect man, and learn a little bit about herself along the way.

Throughout the book, Lucy fights to keep her head held high despite disastrous relationships, dealing with her alcoholic father, arguing with her self-confident roommates, and losing touch with her best friend. But when Lucy finally realizes she's met the love of her life, you will feel the joy and amazement with her, and will be left wanting more.

I had such fun reading this book. The title alone made me laugh and once I opened the book I was not disappointed one bit. This is the first of Marian Keyes books that I have read and I will certainly pick up the rest. She has a wonderful witty style that comes across to the reader in abundance yet she can also write about the hard times in life that we must all go through with a sense of dolefullness and a softness that keeps the reader involved.

Lucy Sullivan is single, desperately so, works at a dull, dead end job and lives with two flatmates - Karen, the egotistical and ruthless one and Charlotte, the sweet and somewhat ditzy other one. The reader can't help but take Lucy's view of these characters.

Her office workers convince her to go to a fortune teller who announces, among other things, that Lucy will be married within the year. Lucy, like the reader, laughs this prediction off but as her officemates' predictions begin to come true one can't help but think that Lucy has a chance.

Through the book we meet her best friend Daniel, who Karen has the hots for, Meridia, her over weight and fabulous co-worker, Gus, the man of Lucy's dreams as well as her parents. Lucy tries to keep her head about her while her flighty boyfriend comes and goes, her job becomes duller and her family begins to fall apart.

But will Lucy find the man of her dreams? Will she be able to hold it all together? Only time will tell (as will readers of this book). While Marian Keyes seems to follow a bit of a pattern in the book, it doesn't seem to hold her back one bit.

I laughed along with Lucy and felt sorrow along with her. With lines like, 'If I had left then, that second, I would have missed the arrival of my anger. But no, I met it me at the door as it staggered in, gasping and panting, worn out from the crosstown journey. "Sorry I am late," it wheezed, cluthing it's chest. "Awful traffic..."' one can't help but totally know what Lucy feels like. Her struggles are very true to life as are the situations she finds herself in. If female readers don't see a bit of themselves in her I'd be surprised.

Anyone that enjoys watch 'Sex in the City' or has read and enjoyed Bridget Jones or Girls Guide to Hunting and fishing will certainly enjoy this book.

I was shopping for a light summer read with and found Angels, by Marian Keyes with the phrase "Best Bet" boldly emblazened on it. I read it, but it is pretty lackluster. The outcome seems predetermined at the start. I was hoping for funny characters with an edge. If you enjoy a quirky "sit by the pool" summer novel, find one by Olivia Goldsmith, Carl Hiassen, or Randy White. These are the masters of odd but endearing characters.

Marian Keyes is probably my favorite writer and I looked forward to reading her newest offering, Angels, for sometime. Its not that it was a bad read per se, I just expected more from the woman who gave me such great reads as Rachel's Holiday and Last Chance Saloon. What I got instead was a regurgitation of Watermelon but told about Maggie, the least interesting of the Walsh sisters, set in LA instead of Ireland. The characters had different names, drive different cars and lived in different countries, but to me it was essentially the same story - husband and wife split up, wife runs home to kooky family (then on to friends in this case) to lick her wounds, has a few new adventures, and finds out what she wants from life just as hubby returns for a reunion attempt. The endings differ but the whole premise to me was the same. I had already read this story once and I was looking forward to something new.

The most redeeming aspect of this book was the return to print of the two Walsh sisters who haven't gotten their own books yet, Helen and Anna. I love these two (although Anna was a bit lackluster this go round too) and I hope that we are treated with books dedicated to each of these characters. Mum and Dad Walsh are also a joy to read about and I hope that Keyes continues to add them into her future work.

Again, this wasn't a bad read, it just didn't meet the standards Keyes has set for herself. She can and has done much better in the past. Hopefully she will dazzle us again with her next effort.

I've now officially read every book written by Marian Keyes that has been published in the U.S., and she has yet to disappoint me. Granted, Angels isn't my favorite book by her (Rachel's Holiday holds that honor), but I was still very entertained and will continue to buy anything she has in print.

Angels tells the story of another of the Walsh sisters -- this time around it's Maggie, the well-behaved one, the one with the perfect life...until she loses her job and her husband in one fail swoop. Slinking back home to her family, Maggie quickly realizes she needs to turn her life around. So when her friend, Emily, invites her to stay with her in Los Angeles, Maggie jumps at the opportunity. L.A. has a sort of backwards effect on Maggie, however -- instead of turning her life around, Maggie somehow turns it upside-down, doing things she never thought she'd do. And the journey ends up being more than just a flight over the Atlantic...

I really enjoyed reading about another Walsh sister. I love the dysfunctional, eccentric qualities about each of them, and I think I could relate to Maggie the most. Marian Keyes has continued to write engaging, wonderful stories that are both funny and heartwarming, but also serious in subject matter. Undoubtedly she will remain on my favorite authors list for a long, long time.

I'm all for growth and change of an artist, but I was looking for the same brain candy I've gotten from other Keyes's books. This book had some of the same rollicking good fun as the other Keyes books I've read ("Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" and "Watermelon"); however, I didn't enjoy "Last Chance Saloon" nearly as much. I felt like Keyes tried too hard to get deep and philosophical by addressing the issue of Fintan's health and focused too much on sending out the moral of 'carpe diem'. If you're after the latest misery of the month choice, stick with Oprah picks. If you're looking for fun and giggles, look to some of Keyes's other novels.

I picked up this book after reading Rachel's holiday, hoping to find another instant British style thriller. While I did enjoy this book, getting into the plot seemed to be my biggest problem and believing some of the events that occured was questionable. However, once I was engaged in the lives of these three friends, it became a blast to read!