Customer Reviews

Always and Forever

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Carrickwell, Ireland three women struggle with the respective directions of their lives. Mel Redmond struggles with guilt feelings as she precariously balances her career at Lorimar with raising her two children. Cleo has just graduated from a hotel management course and wants to prove to her hotelier family that she can do the job as good if not better than they as she offers ideas to save the Willow Hotel, but neither her parents nor her brothers take her seriously. Daisy Farrell yearns for a baby with her long time live-in lover Alex, but fails to conceive so they go to a fertility clinic though he seems very reluctant and has since he became ill several years ago.

The three women find their life map devastated with detours and u-turns as nothing goes right. That is until the opening of the new Clouds Hill Spa by Leah, who is looking to start over with a better balanced lifestyle. Mel, Daisy and Cleo find the spa gives them moments to relax and place perspective on what matters in life and the courage to ALWAYS AND FOREVER seek to achieve what means the most to the individual; of course it is easier to try after a beauty treatment.

This is an interesting character driven contemporary fiction starring three women each suffering from a person crisis that requires change in their lives if they are to achieve any modicum of harmony. The R&R pampering at the spa enables them to unwind and obtain perspective so that their predicament no longer seems like climbing Mount Everest. Cathy Kelly's message is simple that everyone needs a little pampering magic.

Harriet Klausner

Always and Forever took me longer to get into than your typical Cathy Kelly book. Each of the characters had her own tragedy of life occurring and needed mothering and helpful advice - in comes Leah the owner of the new local spa. Leah helps Daisy through the inability to be pregnant and the fact that her boyfriend of over ten-year never loved her and left her after he got his new girlfriend pregnant. She gives her motherly advice and strength when she needs it. Leah also gives Mel courage to go back to work after the huge decision to stay home from work with her 2 little girls. She also helps Cleo reconnect with her family after they sell the family hotel out from under her, crushing her dream of maintaining it and raising her children there as well. Leah seems to be a miracle worker while getting herself along each day after the death of her own son.

It's all just a little too cheesy, of course there is a very happy ending, and all the girls end up becoming life long friends. Although it is entertaining and heartwarming.

I really enjoyed reading this book. At first one of the characters annoyed me, but once I kept reading she became higher on my list. I think that any woman who reads this book will be able to compare themselves to at least one of the characters. At first I was just like one of the characters Mel, but then soon realized I was a little of each one.

This book is a great story of 3 woman who are going through crazy times in their lives and all the obsticles they go through. I really enjoyed how one chapter was about a certain character and once that chapter was over you had to wait until 2 chapters later because the author took turns for each character. That was very smart, made you just not want to put the book down. Don't be fooled by the back of the book saying about 3 woman who go to a spa, that is not till the end and it doesn't make the whole story. The whole book is great at knowing the characters and everything they are going through, not a day at the spa. Read it and you will just feel like you are in another world wanting to help each character.

I have picked up so many books lately that are dull, with stock characters and lame plots...I return at least 2 of 4 to the library unread. This was a refreshing change. Engaging writing, entertaining and friendly style, women you can relate to, nice setting--and the ending wasn't trite, contrived and sappy. Liked reading about the hotel and spa business, too. Will be looking for more by this author.

I read for many reasons, but mostly for the 3 E's: entertainment, escapism, education. I love a good story, a fresh voice, a fascinating setting. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of that in this book. With each page of excrutiatingly boring description of a working-mother's day, from morning to evening, a day in which nothing really happens except what happens to her every day of her life, I kept thinking something has to happen soon, like a car crash or someone getting bad news, something, but nothing did!!! The characters don't have a fatal flaw, don't charm, they don't misstep, they have no enemies, they all have but one desire that is going unfulfilled, there's no dilemna, no crucial decision, no thrills, no chills. We all want characters that we can identify with, but we don't want to read about doing the dishes! I bought this book because I liked one of the author's previous books, but she really forgets everything any writer should know about fiction in this book. There are no scenes, just details. No beginning, middle and end, no drama. NO STORY.

I usually am very fond of girlygirl books like this, especially if the women in question have British accents. And this book wasn't horrible, but it is not a paradigm of the genre either. It took me a while to even get engaged in the story: it starts out from the perspective of supermom Mel who is overwhelmed by being a mother and a fulltime employee, and then moves on to the similarly disinteresting Daisy, a supposedly plain and chubby girl who managed to capture the hottie crew captain in college. Things picked up a bit when the author started in on Cleo, which may simply be because she is a younger character and her plotline was just less depressing. The owner of the spa, which miraculously brings them all together but not until the very end of the book, was a really irritating character to me--an all-knowing and mystical American who somehow solved all these women's problems with a trip to the hot tub. She shares how her life was changed when she went to a spa in Arizona run by--of course--a Native American with the name of, wait for it, Sequoia. Yea, that about sums it up. The problems faced by these women were so smugly and easily solved, it was just unsatisfying.

Of all novels ive read by Cathy Kelly, so far this one was my least favourite. I didnt like the story line and the characters were so unlikable, I mean all of them.

Bad tempered Cleo, her parents keep her out of all the plans for the hotel business, not suprising because she spends the whole novel shooting people 'looks that could kill' and loosing her temper over anything that doesnt go her way.

Daisy whos so unhappy she spends her time drinking wine and eating chocolate, shes so bitter throughout the novel that I honestly didnt want to read on. It was hard to sympathise with her, even though she's had such a rough time of it becuse she just comes across as such a sorry case.

We re subjected to every little detail of Mel's life from what her kids eat for breakfast to what underwear she can afford. Given that every other character in the book has had it so hard in life I spent the whole novel waiting for her to get hit by a train or a tree to fall on her head! But if you want to know every little detail about a mothers life, this is the character for you.