Someone Like You [Hardcover]

Cathy Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2001

Bestselling author Cathy Kelly makes her eagerly awaited U.S. debut with a novel that speaks to the hopes, dreams, and desires of women everywhere.

Leonie, Emma, and Hannah are three women at a critical turning point in their lives-waiting for the final puzzle piece to fall into place, that one elusive thing that will leave them fulfilled. They meet on a holiday in Egypt and find themselves changing in completely unexpected ways.

For Leonie, a forty-something divorced mother of three, taking a vacation she can't really afford could be her last chance to find true love. For Emma, newly married, it means escaping the yoke of her domineering parents. But Hannah, an indepen-dent career woman involved with a younger lover, doesn't believe love can buy happiness.

Meeting once a month despite the distance between their homes, the bond among these new friends deepens and we come to love Leonie, Emma, and Hannah as old friends. As each woman builds a life-a love, a family, a career-she learns there is worth and support for each dream, and with friends like these life blossoms in rich and often surprising ways. Someone Like You is a celebration of all life has to offer, and firmly establishes Cathy Kelly as a compelling and captivating new voice in contemporary women's fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

opular Irish columnist and author Kelly makes her U.S. literary debut with a soap operatic novel about three very different Dublin women who become fast friends while on holiday in Egypt. After their return, they meet regularly and commiserate with each other over mishaps, regale one another with triumphs and rage together over life's vicissitudes. Emma Sheridan is 31 and happily married, but obsessed with her failure to get pregnant. As the cowed daughter of a passive-aggressive mother and a viciously boorish father, she deserves sympathy, but her friends wonder why she refuses to seek a doctor's advice about fertility and also why she doesn't stand up to her abusive father. Hannah Campbell, a chic career woman in her mid-30s, has a lusty sex drive and works out regularly to keep her figure, but is still recovering from being dumped after a 10-year affair. Leonie Delaney, a divorced veterinary nurse and animal lover, is a devoted mother of three teenagers who, after six dateless years, finally resorts to a personal ad to find a man, calling herself voluptuous rather than overweight. Indigenous expressions like nappies, loo and shagged aside, the details of the novel designer clothing, characters stricken by Alzheimer's and bulimia and, of course, the single career woman's search for an ideal mate suggest that it could as easily be set in Chicago as Dublin. After nearly 500 pages, readers will have gotten to know these three women intimately all are believable and memorable. Part Bridget Jones, part Ann Landers, this saga of hope and disillusionment is fully equipped with soul-searching, sex and, above all, comforting female friendship. Agent, Ali Gunn of Curtis Brown. (July)Forecast: A cozy jacket photo fails to suggest the scrappier story within; this engaging but unremarkable novel may escape the radar of most American readers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The best-selling contemporary women's fiction author in the U.K and her native Ireland makes her U.S. debut with a warm and lighthearted novel that follows the trials and tribulations of three women who become close friends after a chance meeting during a vacation in Egypt. Through their friendship, the women discover that each has a secret goal over which they endlessly obsess. For Emma, it is escaping her domineering father and finally conceiving a child with her husband; for Leonie, divorced mother of three teenagers, it means finding the elusive true love of her life; and for Hannah, it's the pursuit of independence and security--qualities she doesn't think she'll ever be able to trust any man to provide. After their return home to Ireland, the three women meet once a month, detailing their hopes and dreams as they form deeper bonds and console and provide mutual support. Kelly's female archetypes transcend national boundaries, and her book will appeal to readers who favor warm and funny contemporary women's fiction about realistic women. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 472 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1st Us Edition edition (July 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525946055
• ISBN-13: 978-0525946052
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,404,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Three Irish Girls Find Friendship and Romance, July 20, 2002

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Someone Like You (Mass Market Paperback)

Author Cathy Kelly gives us three very distinctive women in this book. They all have their personal ups and downs and all are in need of a good friend/confidante. How fortunate that this is just what they find on a vacation in Egypt. They bond in the blistering Egyptian heat and, since they all live fairly near one another, continue the friendship once they are back in Dublin.

Hannah is the insecure career girl who has been dumped by her boyfriend of ten years. Can a career replace her need for romance? Will one-night stands be enough to satisfy? Can the handsome actor who fancies her provide lasting happiness?

Emma is a pathetic woman who even though married is being emotionally and verbally abused by her parents. When the tables are turned and a catastrophic illness causes them to need her, will she be there? Can she ever face the fears she has about not being able to conceive a child?

Leonie is the flamboyant mother of three teens who touched me the most. She has to face flying to America to see her ex-husband marry the perfect woman while she herself is reduced to looking for love in the personal ads column. Share her joy and sorrow as each of these dates leads to even more problems. Will Leonie be able to referee life at home and still find satisfaction for herself? And just who is that mysterious neighbor who walks his two dogs?

There's plenty of heart-touching situations in this one as three grown women find the courage to confront life's problems----the everyday ones and the major ones. After all, with friends like these, you know that hope and happiness is just around the corner.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging!, March 19, 2003

By 

"sylsbooks" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Someone Like You (Mass Market Paperback)

Hannah, Leonie and Emma stole my heart from the first pages of this wonderful book. I was immediately drawn into their lives, felt their pain, laughed alongside each of them and cheered them on to the finish.

A chance meeting on an Eygptian vacation leads these three women into the world of true friendship. An unlikely threesome from the beginning, each woman discovers a deep and compassionate sisterhood that gives each of them the strength to deal with their own lives on a deeper level.

This is my first Cathy Kelly book. I was very impressed by the depth of the character development and the insight that Ms. Kelly exhibits in her writing. I will be checking my book store for more of this author. Bravo!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those books you don't want to end!, August 24, 2001

By 

P.J. Cross (Wilmington, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Someone Like You (Hardcover)

If you are a fan of Rosamund Pilcher and Maeve Binchy, you will be delighted to welcome Cathy Kelly to your library. Pour the glass of wine or cup of tea and enjoy your trip to Ireland. The characters and settings were wonderfully detailed and by the end of the book, you felt that pang that comes when a good book ends! I did become frustrated when the characters seemed to make bad choices over and over again - but then I also know many women who are exactly like that. I am delighted to add Cathy Kelly to my reading list and wish that we could get access to her previous novels that were released in the UK.