The renowned philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once observed: “There is always madness in love”. Yet few of us escape it, whether it’s happy-ever-after or a short, sharp shock. Here’s a glimpse at four recent releases, all of them about love.
Sue Teddern’s The Pre-Loved Club (Pan, €12.99) focuses on the members of a single parents’ support group, who meet weekly in an upstairs room of a Brighton pub. Not much space for comedy, you’d think, but this novel is a scream.
The story is told by Ned, whose wife left him for a wealthy architect and took their daughter with her, and Gemma, who threw her husband out when she discovered his affair but kept their son. Co-parenting is difficult, not least because of the empty nights when the kids are away and it’s all Netflix and TV dinners. It makes Ned sad. It makes Gemma mad as hell.
Ned’s hapless colleague Andy in the office provides much of the comedy, as do the patients in the nursing home where Gemma works. The elegant old town of Brighton gets to do her turn, too, in this very funny, warm-hearted and unlikely love story. If you like Helen Fielding and Sue Townsend, you’ll love this.
Carmel Harrington takes us from Donegal to Bermuda, via Canada and a shipwreck, in The Girl from Donegal (HarperCollins, €12.99). It’s 1939 and Ella Laverty finds love again after losing her beloved Davey on a prison boat. She’s on board the SS Athenia, en route to meet her new love Matthew who’s stationed in Bermuda. The Athenia is torpedoed by the Germans, but Ella survives, along with five-year-old Kate who loses her family in the attack.
Fast forward to the present day and Saoirse is visiting her elderly Aunt Kate and her partner Esme in Bermuda. Saoirse had previously settled in Canada with her rancher husband but they divorced. She’s now newly engaged yet feels she’s got unfinished business with her ex; she still loves him. An atmospheric story, sweeping across 80 years, of two women who get a second bite at the cherry.
The fictionalising of three true stories of love and loss is the stuff of Jessie Stephens’s Heartsick (Pan, €12.50), a sobering account of love gone wrong. Young student Patrick meets Caitlin on campus and they fall for each other, but Patrick falls harder. Claire is bringing her partner Maggie home but as the time approaches, Claire has doubts. Married Ana finds – literally overnight – she’s fallen for someone else.
All three relationships are doomed. That’s not a spoiler. We are informed this at the outset. While Stephens displays considerable artistry in creating a seamless narrative from three case histories, it’s a pretty maudlin book.
In her afterword, she insists that grieving from break-ups is “not respected” and those suffering heartbreak are merely offered platitudes. I wouldn’t necessarily agree, but in any case heartbreak, at some stage, is as inevitable for most of us as death and taxes.
Sheena Wilkinson’s Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau (HarperCollins, €13.99) is a riotously funny novel with hints of Noel Coward and PG Wodehouse. It’s 1934 and Northern Irish April McVey is the new manager in the marriage bureau of the title.
She’s intent on updating this failing business, much to the initial consternation of its owner. But Mrs Hart takes to April, just as April takes to Yorkshire and her newfound freedom. April’s landlady has a widowed brother, Fabian, a solicitor with a nightmare teenage daughter.
Fabian lives in the shadow of his wife, now dead three years; April, for all her no-nonsense disposition and persistent sunshine, has a ghost or two of her own.
In beautifully authentic language true to its time and setting, along with mischief and irony, this is a gem. Kate Atkinson fans will love it.