The Mystery of Mercy Close

Product Information

I have a real fondness of Marian Keyes' books. I've been reading them since I was a young girl and they would be passed around our family, as well as various neighbours and friends. Her writing has a quality that really resonates with people and with the Walsh family, she's at her very best. I loved the setting- Ireland. The humor mixed in with the dark depths of an uncomfortable topic was pulled off with aplomb. There were some laugh out loud moments, and some poignant moments as well as a compelling mystery. I really liked the way this book was written. It is as if Helen Walsh is sitting across from the reader and narrating her life. She just talks away, at times hopping from subject to subject as people do in conversations, without ever losing her thread. She is brutally honest about herself and her shortcomings, which are plenty. While she never tries to make herself look nice or sympathetic I couldn’t help but like Helen. I have read a couple of books about the Walsh family series (my favourite so far is ) and find them funny but poignant - Mammy Walsh is hilarious! That’s a tough question to answer because I write intuitively rather than logically – I tell a story first and then overlay a structure at the end. (And it’s something I agonise about. I can’t tell you the number of conversations I’ve had with my husband when I’ve put my face in my hands and wailed, “But how am I going to structure it?” And he always says, “Just write it and you can worry about the arrangement at the end.” And he’s always been right.)

I have so much respect and admiration for the empathy, warmth and sensitivity in her books. This is most obvious when dealing with more difficult topics, in this case depression. But it also shines through in her characters and it's a real joy to read something so non-judgemental. The reader is never looking down or looking up at the characters. You're right on the ground with them and it makes all the difference.I wish more authors I read had this skill

I enjoyed learning about Wayne.Throughout the story we slowly discover little bits about Wayne and all of these pieces put together help us to build up a picture of him. I loved the mystery of Wayne, it was gripping, it was interesting and it had me keen to find out what had happened to him. Marian Keyes, a preeminent writer of contemporary women’s fiction, is the internationally bestselling author of more than ten novels, a cookbook, and two autobiographical works. She lives in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, with her husband. I should never have underestimated Marian Keyes, though, because we've finally gotten Helen's story and she is real, believable, and completely sympathetic while still being the slightly dangerous, unpredictable Helen we've come to know, love and fear (just a little). The mystery is not as mysterious as fans may want if they are also hard-core mystery readers. But anyone who has dealt with depression or grief on any level will recognize that what is obvious in your clear moments is NOT obvious when you are dealing with the crap attention span, brain fog and memory issues that go hand in hand with mental illness. I thought it was very realistic that it took awhile for the dime to drop for Helen even though she had the clues fairly early. So that didn't bother me at all.

I shook my head. ‘I can’t move in with Artie. His kids won’t let me.’ Not exactly. Only Bruno. He absolutely hated me but Iona was pleasant enough and Bella posi- tively adored me. ‘You’re my parents. Unconditional love, might I remind you. My stuff is in the car.’ I wouldn’t mind – I mean, this is the sheer irony of the thing – but I’m the only person I know who doesn’t think it would be delicious to go into ‘someplace’ for ‘a rest’. You’d want to hear my sister Claire going on about it, as if waking up one morning and finding herself in a mental hospital would be the most delightful experience imaginable.Helen has a nice boyfriend, but their relationship is complicated by an ex-wife that still comes and goes like she still lives with him and his three children.

Helen has a new boyfriend, but Jay’s reappearance proves unsettling. Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her own worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly the only person she feels connected to is Wayne, a man she has never even met.What are some of the techniques the author uses in developing the narratives of each member of Ladzz? I loved the inclusion of Helen's family in the story, although some glimpses were brief, some are pretty substantial. It's a treat for those who have followed the trials, tribulations, and joys of the Walsh family over the years. For example, we learn who the man is that Anna's late husband( Anybody Out There?) foretells for her. "I can't give you his exact identity...But I can tell you, you know him already." And that is all we know at the conclusion of that book. It’s more of a conceptual thing. It’s a list of all the people and things I hate so much that I want to hit them in the face with a shovel.’