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Marian Keyes begins Watermelon with a rather inauspicious romantic opening when the heroine's husband leaves her for Denise from the flat downstairs the day their first child is born. Claire, the deserted wife and mother, returns to her family in Dublin and, after going through the required stages of "Loss, Loneliness, Hopelessness and Humiliation", begins to feel much better--so much better that when James tries to win his way back into her affections, he gets more than he bargained for. The author's style is too blunt and her setting too suburban (with its all-too-human heroine struggling to keep her sanity, tend to her new-born baby, fight it out with siblings and begin to love again) to be a traditional romance, but there is enough chemistry and mystery to keep you guessing in the lip-smacking Watermelon--a dish that may not fill you up but will certainly give you a taster of Marian Keyes' work, of which there is much to sample, including Lucy Sullivan is getting Married, Rachel's Holiday and Last Chance Saloon. --Nicola Perry
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