Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|
33607002329780 | Adult Fiction | KEYES | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Lucy Sullivan is getting married -- or is she? Lucy doesn't even have a boyfriend. (To be honest, she isn't that lucky in love.) But Mrs. Nolan -- a local psychic -- has read her tarot cards and predicted that Lucy will be walking down the aisle within the year.
Lucy's roommates, Karen and Charlotte, are appalled at the news. If Lucy leaves it could disrupt their wonderful lifestyle of eating take-out, drinking too much wine, bringing men home and never vacuumming. They might even have to -- God forbid-clean up the apartment to lure in a new roommate. Lucy reassures them that she's far too busy arguing with her mother and taking care of her irresponsible father to get married.
And there's the small matter of no boyfriend. But then Lucy meets Gus, gorgeous, unreliable Gus. And she starts to wonder if he could be the future Mr. Lucy Sullivan. Or could it be handsome Chuck? Or Daniel, the world's biggest flirt? Or even cute Jed, the new boy at work?
Maybe the idea of Lucy Sullivan getting married isn't so unlikely, after all.
Author Notes
Marian Keyes was born in the West of Ireland on September 10, 1963. She was brought up in Dublin, and then she spent her twenties in London. She earned her law degree from Dublin University and then travelled to London where she worked in an administrative job in an accounts office. Keyes developed a drinking problem, and after a failed suicide attempt, entered a rehabilitation program.
Keyes began writing short stories four months before she stopped drinking, in 1993, and when she left rehab, she sent them to a publisher. Included with her stories was a letter saying that she had also begun a novel, which she hadn't. The publisher liked the short stories so much that they wrote back and asked for the novel, and Keyes wrote the first four chapters of her novel Watermelon in a week, and was offered a three-book contract. Watermelon was published in 1995.
Keyes gave up her job in 1996 to become a full time writer. Her books are published in 35 countries worldwide and have been translated into several different languages, such as Hebrew and Japanese. In 2009, She won the Irish Book Award for her fiction novel, This Charming Man.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lucy Sullivan, the eponymous heroine of Irish writer Keyes's second offbeat romantic comedy to be published in the U.S. (after Watermelon), fancies herself simultaneously miserable and happy. A 26-year-old Londoner, Lucy is the kind of woman who thinks that any man who's decent to her must be Mr. Wrong. But when she visits a fortune-teller with a trio of mismatched friends, a marriage is predicted for the near future. When the fortune-teller's prophecies for the other three come true in peculiar ways, even disbelieving, boyfriendless Lucy begins to suspect that, somehow, wedding bells will ring for her. The identity of the lucky man will come as no surprise, though Lucy remains oblivious until the very end, but there are many eligible bachelors on the scene, among them Gus, Lucy's sexy but unreliable new lover; Daniel, her oldest friend; Chuck, a handsome American; and Adrian, the video shop man. The attendant mayhem includes drunken meals at ethnic restaurants, flamenco dancing accidents, blind dates gone wrong and many delicious confessions and revelations. As Lucy says, "I was still at that stage in my life when I thought that weekdays were for recovering from the weekend," but more often than not, her weekdays are as full of exhausting fun as her weekends. Surprisingly for a comic novel, the book also takes on the serious themes of clinical depression and alcoholism, handling both with sensitivity and humor. Throughout, the effervescent narrative is fueled by witty repartee; though its outcome may be predictable, its sentiments are heartfelt, and its progress is sprightly. Fans of Bridget Jones will be delighted. Agent, Russell Galen of Scovil Chichak Galen. (Aug.) FYI: Touchstone Pictures has optioned the rights to Keyes's novel, Rachel's Holiday. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Lucy Sullivan is a depressed, single, twentysomething Londoner with two roommates and a boring office job. Then, a fortune-teller predicts that within the next year Lucy will get married-a laugh for Lucy who is so woefully unlucky at love. Whom would she marry? VERDICT As with Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996), readers will root for the spirited Lucy in her humorous, occasionally heart-wrenching, and ultimately heartwarming adventures to find love. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married Chapter One When Meredia reminded me that the four of us from the office were due to visit a fortune-teller the following day, my stomach lurched. "You've forgotten," accused Meredia, her chubby face aquiver. I had. She slapped her hand down on her desk and warned, "Don't even think of trying to tell me that you're not coming." "Damn," I whispered, because that was just what I had been about to do. Not because I had any objections to having my fortune told. On the contrary--it was usually good for a laugh. Especially when they got to the part where they told me that the man of my dreams was just around the next comer. That part was always hilarious. Even I laughed. But I was poor. Although I had just been paid, my bank account was a post-holocaust, corpse-strewn wasteland because the day I'd been paid, I'd spent a fortune on aromatherapy oils that had promised to rejuvenate and energize and uplift me. And bankrupt me, except it didn't say that on the packaging. But I think the idea was that I'd be so rejuvenated and energized and uplifted that I wouldn't care. So when Meredia reminded me that. I'd committed myself to paying some woman thirty pounds so that she could tell me that I would travel over water and that I was quite psychic myself, I realized that I'd be going without lunch for two weeks. "I'm not sure that I can afford it," I said nervously. "You can't back out now!" thundered Meredia. "Mrs. Nolan is giving us a discount. The rest of us will have to pay more if you don't come." "Who's this Mrs. Nolan?" Megan asked suspiciously, looking up from her computer where she had been playing Solitaire. She was supposed to be running a check on debtors overdue a month. "The tarot reader," said Meredia. "What kind of name is Mrs. Nolan?" demanded Megan. "She's Irish," protested Meredia. "No!" Megan tossed her shiny, blond hair in annoyance. "I mean, what kind of name is 'Mrs. Nolan' for a psychic? She should be called Madam Zora or something like that. She can't be called 'Mrs. Nolan.' How can we believe a word that she says?" "Well, that's her name." Meredia sounded hurt. "And why didn't she change it?" said Megan. "There's nothing to it, so I'm told. Isn't that right, so-called Meredia?" A pregnant pause. "Or should I say 'Cathy'?" Megan continued with triumph. "No, you shouldn't," said Meredia. "My name is Meredia." "Sure," said Megan, with great sarcasm. "It is!" said Meredia hotly. "So let's see your birth certificate," challenged Megan. Megan and Meredia didn't see eye to eye on most things and especially not on Meredia's name. Megan was a no-nonsense Australian with a low bullshit threshold. Since she had arrived three months ago as a temp, she had insisted that Meredia wasn't Meredia's real name. She was probablyright. Although I was very fond of Meredia, I had to agree that her name had a certain makeshift, ramshackle, cobbled-together-out-of-old-egg-cartons feel to it. But unlike Megan I couldn't really see a problem with that. "So it's definitely not 'Cathy'?" Megan took a little notebook out of her purse and drew a line through something. "No," said Meredia stiffly. "Right," said Megan. "That's all the Cs done. Time for the Ds. Daphne? Deirdre? Dolores? Denise? Diana? Dinah?" "Shut up!" said Meredia, clearly on the verge of tears. "Stop it." Hetty put a gentle hand on Megan's arm, because that's the kind of thing that Hetty did. Although Hetty was rich, she was also a good, kind person, who poured oil on troubled waters. Which meant, of course, that she wasn't much fun, but no one was perfect. Immediately upon meeting Hetty, you could tell that Hetty came from old money--mostly because she had horrible clothes. Even though she was only about thirty-five she wore awful tweed skirts and flowery dresses that looked like family heirlooms. She never bought new clothes, which was a shame because one of the chief ways that office workers bonded was by displaying the spoils of the post-payday shopping run. "I wish that Aussie bitch would leave," Meredia muttered to Hetty. "It probably won't be long now," Hetty said soothingly. "When are you going to leave?" Meredia demanded of Megan. "As soon as I've got the cash," Megan replied. Megan was doing her grand tour of Europe and had temporarily run out of money. But as soon as she had enough money to go, she was going--she constantly reminded us--to Scandinavia or Greece or the Pyrenees or the west of Ireland. Until then Hetty and I would have to break up the vicious fights that broke out regularly. Megan was tall and tanned and gorgeous, Meredia was short and fat and not gorgeous. Meredia was jealous of Megan's beauty, while Megan despised Meredia's excess weight. When Meredia couldn't buy clothes to fit her, instead of making sympathetic noises like the rest of us did, Megan barked, "Stop whining and go on a bloody diet!" But Meredia never did. And in the meantime she was condemned to cause cars to swerve whenever she walked down the road. Because instead of trying to disguise her size with vertical stripes and dark colors, she seemed to dress to enhance it. She went for the layered look, layers and layers and layers of fabric. Really, lots. Acres of fabric, yards and yards of velvet, draped and pinned and knotted and tied, anchored with broaches, attached with scarves, pinned and arranged along her sizeable girth. And the more colors the better. Crimson and vermilion and sunburst orange and flame red . . . Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married . Copyright © by Marian Keyes. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married by Marian Keyes All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.