About the Author

Marian Keyes is the international bestselling author of Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man, The Brightest Star in the Sky, The Mystery of Mercy Close and The Woman Who Stole My Life. Her journalism, collected under two titles, Making It Up As I Go Along and Under the Duvet: Deluxe Edition, containing the original publications Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also available from Penguin.
Marian lives in Dublin with her husband.

Reviews

In Marian Keyes' BESTSELLING Last Chance Saloon, three great friends discover that despite their best-laid plans, life can unravel in the most unexpected ways.

'Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara's case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer's . . .'
*from the publisher's description*

Book blurbs are so often full of the exaggerated allegations made famous by used-car salesmen. Not so for Marian Keyes' latest creation, Last Chance Saloon. It really is `laugh-out-loud funny, irresistible, life-affirming, uplifting, compulsive reading', and more. It has an easy and gripping plot, wonderfully `real' characters (and some fabulously unreal ones too), and even some messages about life, which are made digestible by Keyes' unassuming delivery. Last Chance Saloon tells the stories of a group of 30-something best friends and their partners, all of whom are full of quirky neuroses. The most loveable is Tara, who `has been on a diet since the day she was on solids', and who tragically embarks upon a knitting project to maintain her diet and her relationship. In contrast to Tara is her best friend, Katherine, who quickly challenges her nickname, `the ice-queen', surprising the reader with her double life. In fact, Keyes is good at surprises. Early on in the book, the seemingly lightweight plot is shaken by the introduction of some real-life tragedy, including one character's life-threatening illness. This illness has the dual consequence of triggering momentous life change for all the characters, whilst also giving the book credible dimension. Michelle Atkins is a contract and copyright coordinator at Nelson Thomson Learning. C. 1999 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

Imagine Bridget Jones in a Jacobean revenge drama, a sort of 'Tis a Pity She's Single that's the flavor of this entry in the urban unmarried female angst sweepstakes. This time, the protagonists are two London women who grew up together in the small, repressive Irish town of Knockavoy. Tara, a computer analyst, lives with Thomas, a bitter and miserly high school geography teacher. Afraid to live on her own, she is willing to overlook the fact that Thomas ignores her birthday, constantly monitors her eating habits and insults her friends under the guise of being "honest." Katherine Casey, an accountant for an advertising agency, wears boring suits, has a hyperorganized underwear drawer and brushes off all advances, including those of attractive advertising account executive Joe Roth. As they turn 31, each woman is full of suggestions for improving the other's life and full of excuses for doing nothing about her own. That begins to change when Fintan O'Grady, their gay pal and fellow Knockavoy refugee, falls ill with a mysterious disease. As their paths are crisscrossed by a self-centered Irish actor named Lorcan Larkin, Fintan emotionally blackmails Tara and Katherine into making long-needed changes. Keyes (Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married) effectively describes the young women's searches for autonomy and love, but her flippant, arch tone is less effective when recounting the more grim stories of Fintan and Lorcan. In addition, some of the repartee, perhaps fresh when the book was originally published in Great Britain in 2001, already seems shopworn. The Knockavoy refugees are a sympathetic trio, however, and their deftly plotted saga is likely to appeal to fellow singletons. (Aug.) Forecast: Readers will have to be nearly as desperate as the heroines of Keyes's relationship drama to find satisfaction here but there's no underestimating the appeal of even halfway decent girl-talk books. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

In Marian Keyes' BESTSELLING Last Chance Saloon, three great friends discover that despite their best-laid plans, life can unravel in the most unexpected ways. 'Love is blind, there was no doubt about it. In Tara's case it was also deaf, dumb, dyslexic, had a bad hip and the beginnings of Alzheimer's . . .' * from the publisher's description *