Part of the This Is York Network Home News Sport ... January Be Careful What You Wish For by Martina Devlin (HarperCollins, £5.99) From the Evening Press, first published Wednesday 30th Jan 2002. MARTINA Devlin burst on to the literary scene last year with Three Wise Men. Her smashing debut proved that there's room in chick lit for sophistication as well as sex. This time round Ms Devlin, a journalist on the Irish Independent, has written an even better book. Be Careful What You Wish For is a compelling tale of friendship, frolics and forbidden love, set against Dublin's newspaper offices, bars and nightclubs. Her heroine, Molly Molloy, is an Irish Bridget Jones, brimming with neuroses and alcohol. She cannot choose between the dashing Fionn McCullagh, who broke her heart and is back on the scene, and Hercules, a moody Greek god dispensing wine in her local off-licence. Molly's friend Helen could not be more different. Helen loves order in her life, from her steady job to her immaculate CD collection. But a troubled childhood has left its scars, and her heart cannot accept her mind's wish for peace and tranquillity. A doomed love affair, with someone too close, shatters the order she craves and tears her apart. Helen's affair, and Molly's reaction to it, provides the tension in this novel. There may be echoes of Bridget Jones, amid the cigarettes and the Chardonnay bottles, but there are darker, soul-searching undercurrents that make this more harrowing, and more believable. | |
|
