Random House Uk Ltd

WINNER OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD
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'Fresh, entertaining, funny and moving' RODDY DOYLE

'A touching tale of how one woman survives a tough beginning to eventually end up exactly where her heart belongs' ANNE GRIFFIN, author of When All is Said
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'If I could go back to being sixteen again, I'd do things differently.'
'Everyone over the age of forty feels like that, you total gom,' says my best friend Lizzie Magee.

When she was young Mary Rattigan wanted to fly. She was going to take off like an angel from heaven and leave the muck and madness of troubled Northern Ireland behind. Nothing but the Land of Happy Ever After would do for her.

But as a Catholic girl with a B.I.T.C.H. for a Mammy and a silent Daddy, things did not go as she and Lizzie Magee had planned.

Now, five children, twenty-five years, an end to the bombs and bullets, enough whiskey to sink a ship and endless wakes and sandwich teas later, Mary's alone. She's learned plenty of hard lessons and missed a hundred steps towards the life she'd always hoped for.

Will she finally find the courage to ask for the love she deserves? Or is it too late?

Candice Fox is the middle child of a large, eccentric family from Sydney¿s western suburbs. The daughter of a parole officer and an enthusiastic foster-carer, Candice spent her childhood listening around corners to tales of violence, madness and evil as her father relayed his work stories to her mother and older brothers.

Candice won back-to-back Ned Kelly awards for her first two novels ¿ Hades and Eden. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed Fall, Crimson Lake, Redemption and Gone by Midnight. Candice¿s first collaboration with James Patterson, Never Never, was a Sunday Times and New York Times no. 1 bestseller. They have co-authored three further novels featuring Harriet Blue ¿ Fifty Fifty, Liar Liar and Hush Hush.