Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Lessons in Heartbreak by Cathy Kelly

4 Star

Izzie Silver left the small Irish town of Tamarin behind for New York. Life is good - until she breaks her own rules and falls for a married man.

On the other side of the ocean, Izzie's aunt Anneliese discovers the pain of infidelity for herself.

Then Lily, the wise and compassionate family matriarch, is taken ill. At her bedside back in Ireland, Izzie discovers a past her grandmother has never spoken of, while Anneliese feels despair mount. The one person she could have turned to is starting to slip away.

The lessons each of the women learns -- both past and present -- bring joy and heartbreak. And the hardest lesson of all is learning to let go.

Kathryn - 4 Star

Lydia and I had the good fortune to be invited to a reading with Cathy Kelly in the spring and this is one of the novels I had not yet read of hers.  I actually found it a little bit different in style from her latest novel which was exciting especially as I enjoyed it just as much.  


The novel is set in both New York and small town Ireland and travels back and forth between main character Izzie’s current life and her childhood- it also explores her relatives’ lives in both the present and the past.  The writing is fascinating in the simple way Kelly covers two places and two time periods without causing confusion for the reader. I think Cathy Kelly did a wonderful job giving us a good visual for all scenarios. Izzie is real and loveable and I felt a true desire for her to get what she wanted out of life.  I also loved her grandmother and her history very much and appreciated the parallels between her past and Izzie’s present.
The one thing I had hoped would be explored in more depth was the history of Izzie’s home in Ireland- one of the characters was set up to do a history of the town which I thought was going to relate to Izzie’s grandmother more but it was sort of left off in the end and I was a bit disappointed that that didn’t tie in.
All in all a happy Cathy Kelly read for me!

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for our review copy! All opinions are our own.

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