This book would be my 6th book from Cathy Kelly. I love her books, What She Wants( the first book I read from this Irish writer), Best of Friends and now, Someone Like You. Finally, after finishing my finals, this was my first book and I devoured it pretty quickly. Just 3 days. Hehehe. Anyway, her books usually revolve around 3 main characters, which will meet up at some point early in the story and form close friendship throughout the book. As they remain friends, they suffer some things in life and they turn to each other for comfort, companionship and a cry on the shoulder.
The three friends in this Cathy Kelly books are Hannah, Emma and Leonie. They met in the same tour they signed up for in Egypt. These three characters are different from each other as light and day.
Hannah Campbell is an independent thirty-six year old woman who is a total knockout. Very confident and sexy. She works as a hotel receptionist, then as an office manager of a real estate office before being promoted as a real estate agent. She works hard, and is determined not to depend on anyone for anything. She’s sworn off men after Harry, her boyfriend of ten years dumped her to go travelling South America.
Emma Sheridan, a husky voiced woman, is a quiet, shy and gentle woman who has trouble conveying her feelings, making her a total pushover. She has a sweet and loving husband Pete who she wants to have a baby with. She is constantly controlled by her domineering father and desperately wants to stand up to him but fails to do every time.
Leonie Delaney is a divorced mother of three teenagers, 19 year old Danny and 14 year old fraternal twins Abby and Mel. She’s funny, vivacious and longs for true love. She’s a veterinary nurse and loves animals. Even though she was happy with her then husband, she wanted a divorce because she knew that they weren’t in love with each other.
After this three pair met on the cruise at Egypt, they decided to keep in contact after the holiday. Hannah soon falls in love with a charming, sexy actor Felix Andretti but he is unreliable and disappears over a few months. It was not until an encounter with Harry, her ex boyfriend, who has returned from his trip, Felix happens to bump into them and immediately is jealous. Felix tries to get back in her good graces but Hannah, who doesn’t want to be hurt again, turns him down. But Felix, being persistent and Hannah, missing Felix herself, get back together and get married.
Emma continues hoping for the baby that never comes and with each period she gets, she becomes more bitter and resentful. Her father is a control freak and obviously favours Emma’s younger sister, Kirsten, who is the exact opposite of Emma (says what she wants and manages to wriggle out of family commitments while still earning compliments from her parents). She doesn’t confide her baby wishes even to her husband, Pete but tells them to Leonie and Hannah. After the Egypt visit, she notices that her mother is showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Emma ends up being the strong one in the family when her father refuses to get help for his wife and Kirsten ‘see no evil, and hear no evil’ mindset. She finally tells off her father after he takes her for granted which made Pete, Kirsten, Leonie and Hannah very happy for her.
After the trip from Egypt, Leonie is informed by her children that their father is getting married again. Leonie becomes jealous and feels threatened when the twins become more in awe of the classically elegant Fliss, who is very rich, showers them with expensive clothes and trips overseas. She fails to see her daughter Abby becoming bulimic in an effort to be pretty like her twin, Mel. But when she does, she gets told off by her ex husband but in the end, Fliss saves the day by suggesting Abby to have a change of scenery. Along the way, Leonie puts an ad to find a relationship. She meets Hugh but things didn’t work out. She becomes friends with Doug , her reclusive neighbour.
I loved the book and read it at every possible moment. I finished it in 1 weekend. I’m a fast reader but this book was quite thick, deliciously so but the characters seemed so real, it made me so interested to find out what happened next.
I was particularly interested in Hannah Campbell. She’s very interesting. I could relate to her feelings very well. Getting dumped so unceremoniously by Harry, it made her stronger. Oh, and Felix. Hannah wasn’t the only one who fell in love with Felix, I did too. He was charming, playful and sexy. Together with Hannah, they make a marvellous pair. Hannah’s hunky boss, David James also fell in love with Hannah but Hannah was smitten with Felix by then. David is sweet, responsible and the sort of guy you look for when you need some protecting. He wasn’t really pleased with Hannah being with Felix and was disappointed when Hannah chose to marry Felix. He even warned Felix not to hurt her.
Oh, Emma saw through him and unlike Leonie, she wasn’t really happy when Hannah got back with him and accepted his marriage proposal after his 1 month disappearing act. Leonie, who yearned for true love disregarded this and Hannah was angry at Emma for quite a while. But true enough, when Hannah found him in bed with their au pair, he did not make an effort to apologise properly and even said that even though he loved Hannah, he preferred to sleep with someone else occasionally. (In his words : “I do love you, I just wanted to fuck somebody else..-..It’s like red wine. Just because I like it, doesn’t mean I want to drink it all the time. Sometimes, I like whiskey or champagne.”-Felix)
Very callous. After Hannah leaving everything for him, her home, her job, and her friends to go follow Felix and have their baby, Claudia and end up like this. Felix was a flawed person. He desperately wanted to be famous but just didn’t cut it. He was vain and willing to cut off his family roots completely. (His name is actually a fake!) But in the end, Hannah did have her perfect ending where David admits that he still is crazy for her and Hannah is willing to give it a try. Yay!
Emma was quite frustrating. Every time her father bosses her around, it makes me angry for her. Just stand up for yourself already! But in the end, she did. Even her sister Kirsten made a big change for herself. As for Emma hoping for a baby, I think a lot of women suffer from this problem. It must be agony, to be completely sure you were pregnant then finding out you’re not. And seeing babies everywhere and people commenting when is the baby coming. I felt sorry for Emma when Hannah was over the moon with happiness during her pregnancy. Lucky for Emma, she has a loving husband who would sacrifice anything for her. Even though Emma didn’t confide in her husband about her baby fears, Pete was aware of it. Which is really sweet. In the end, she did have a baby. It’s all just about timing, and clearing up your life.
Leonie is sweet and very caring. Being a mother isn’t that easy, especially with a kid who suffers from bulimia and has a pretty twin. I get that Abby is feeling insecure, even I do feel insecure sometimes. But if it was a choice being bulimic and anorexic, I would choose being anorexic. Why would you cough up the food back up? It seems pointless and hurtful too. Anyway, in the beginning Mel was starting to piss me off with her rude comments but hey, she’s a teenager. Sometimes you say things you don’t mean at all and sometimes you inadvertently say things that hurt your parents unintentionally. I do empathize with her though, but not completely. Leonie’s first boyfriend after her divorce, Hugh is a total jerk. He was sweet and seemed perfect at first but turned out to be inconsiderate and spoilt his daughter rotten. Doug, Leonie’s neighbour, turned out to be Leonie’s knight in shining armour. When he came to the vet, looking for Leonie, I actually felt my heart racing. I like that feeling when I read books. Thrilling.
Five stars for this book, I truly enjoyed this book as much as the first Cathy Kelly book I read, What She Wants. It certainly made it in my list of favourite books.
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