She tried everything, from reiki to cognitive behavioural therapy to "vitamin supplements up the wazoo", and even going to mass with her mother. "That's how bad I was. I abhor Catholicism, but I was that desperate." In the end, it was the passage of time, plus the discovery of a new hobby/obsession, baking (which led to a book of recipes) plus the slow, painful emergence of the novel that would become The Mystery of Mercy Close, which pulled her out of the pit. Claire goes through different stages of emotions while in Dublin. All the while, her family lives their life around her. One day, her youngest sister, Helen, brings home a handsome young man from college, who will help her with her studies. His name is Adam and he's twenty-four. Upon meeting him, Claire has an immediate attraction to him. Through a series of maneuverings, meetings, discussions and such, they eventually, one day, end up at Adam's flat, where they make love. Discover the riotously funny, tender and touching debut from the No. 1 bestselling author of Grown Ups

On the day she gives birth to her first child, Claire's husband James tells her he's been having an affair, and that now's the right time to leave her. Through meetings and discussions with James, and meetings and talks with Adam, Claire makes her decision. She decides she will leave James for good. She will work on building a love relationship with Adam. James will not accept responsibility for the affair he had. He says that Claire, through her demands on him and selfishness, drove him to have an affair. He won't admit that he was wrong. He turns the tables and makes it like he is a victim, and that Claire must change her ways if the marriage is to work. Claire does not fall for this line of reasoning. She knows she is not the devil James is making her out to be. She knows that she cannot be with him if he cannot see what he did wrong. Reading a novel by Marian Keyes is like sitting at the kitchen table with your nicest, most confiding friend' Daily Mail

It's not the first time writing has saved her. Having studied law at university, Keyes ended up working in an accounts office in London. She started writing only in "the final few appalling dreadful months", before she gave up drinking. She began with short stories, funny, whimsical things, with no intention of showing them to anyone. "I think it was an attempt to save myself, even though I had no idea consciously what was going on, because I was heading towards some sort of terrible life-or-death choice." When she came out of rehab, she decided to try to make something of the stories. She sent them to the Irish publisher Poolbeg, adding – falsely – that she had also started work on a novel, which they asked to see. Joyful. Keyes' clever way with words and extraordinary wit. People stared at me as I laughed to myself' C.L. Taylor Things become more complicated for Claire. James, her husband, shows up in Dublin to attempt a reconciliation with her. He shows up the day that Claire made love to Adam, and is staying at a hotel. Claire must decide whether she wants to pursue a relationship with Adam, or work things out with James. She feels she should try to patch things up with James for their daughter's sake. Claire has named her daughter Kate, after her grandmother on her mother's side. Will make you laugh and make you cry, but will also reveal the truth of who you really are' Louise O'Neill Love the Walsh sisters? Don't miss out on the eagerly awaited sequel to Rachel's Holiday: AGAIN, RACHEL . . .

Marian Keyes is a brilliant writer. No one is better at making terrifically funny jokes while telling such important, perceptive and agonizing stories of the heart. She is a genius' Sali Hughes verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Will she forgive and forget? Or can she find the courage to take a chance on herself, and start a life of her own? Watermelon begins with Claire, twenty-nine, in hospital in London, England. She has given birth to a new baby girl. Within a few hours of that birth, her husband James enters the hospital room to inform her that he is leaving her for another woman. He is running out on Claire and their firstborn child for an older married woman who lives in the same apartment complex as they do. Claire makes the decision to head to her ancestral home in Dublin, Ireland, with her baby. This is where her parents and sisters live. In her 20s Keyes was an alcoholic and, after trying to kill herself at the age of 30, ended up in rehab (she now divides her life into before and after drinking). The recent depression was worse. After the course, she had about a week "of feeling really kind of elated, and then the elation began to move into shimmering, strange, manic anxiety, and then into a catastrophic fear … People looked different to me; people close to me, like Tony [her husband]. I used to have moments of thinking 'I don't know who you are'. It was horrific, like a psychotic episode that went on for a long time. Whatever they did to me in that place, it brought me face to face with my worst fears."For a long time all I could do was read what I'd written," Keyes says. "Even when I couldn't write I'd read what I'd written and think 'how did those words come when I was feeling so bad?' It was very comforting, very encouraging … I really never thought I'd finish it, but it kept me going." And there's no way she's giving up on happy endings, or comedy. "Jesus, life is hard enough. I mean, I need to have a laugh," she says. "I used to feel defensive when people would say 'yes, but your books have happy endings', as if that made them worthless, or unrealistic. Some people do get happy endings, even if it's only for a while. I would rather never be published again than write a downbeat ending. I couldn't have something permanent in the world like a book with something that accepted that life is as painful as it really is."