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Yours, Faithfully

Sheila O'Flanagan

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Jul 02, 2008 Nadia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: chick-lit, my-reads-for-2008

At the beginning of 'Yours, Faithfully' we meet Iona Brannon. She has been happily married to her husband Frank, who she wed in the Carribean, for the last five years. They are desperately trying for a baby to make their family complete - although unfortunately Iona has just discovered that she is not pregnant this month. Iona and Frank have a very strong idyllic marriage even though his business takes him away such a lot.

In the next chapter we meet Sally who has been happily married to her husb At the beginning of 'Yours, Faithfully' we meet Iona Brannon. She has been happily married to her husband Frank, who she wed in the Carribean, for the last five years. They are desperately trying for a baby to make their family complete - although unfortunately Iona has just discovered that she is not pregnant this month. Iona and Frank have a very strong idyllic marriage even though his business takes him away such a lot.

In the next chapter we meet Sally who has been happily married to her husband for at least twenty years and they have a teenaged daughter, Jenna. Much to her amazement, Sally has discovered that she is expected a baby and has quite ambiguous feelings about this - and especially about how she is going to tell her husband - Frank who is away on business at the moment. Are you thinking what I was thinking at this stage in the book?

Yes, ten out of ten if you were thinking that both husbands are indeed the same man. For some explicable reason Frank has married both women, virtually twenty years apart, and has been managing to maintain a dual existance for the last five years with neither 'wife' suspecting a thing! And of course the plan was to continue with this double life for as long as he could - apart from the fact that fate intervenes and due to a freak accident Frank ends up in hospital in a coma.

And it is there at the hospital. virtually across Frank's bed that the two women meet and discover the existence of the other. At first there is open hostility and animosity but as Frank continues in his coma, the two women get to know each other and gradually form a strong bond. As they do this, they learn a lot, not only about each other, but also about themselves.

All three of the main women characters were really strong and well developed and I enjoyed the way they moved from open hostilities to an uneasy truce to a firm friendship. It was interesting the way the reader was privy to their thoughts particularly about each other. It is apparent from quite early on that the two 'wives' are extremely different in almost every way, and neither can understand why their Frank was attracted to the other. I also sympathised greatly with Iona who had to come to terms with the fact that Sally is carrying Frank's baby which she so dearly wishes could be hers.

I really liked all the characters and started to care about what would happen to them. All the way through I was thinking how on earth could all this turn out. It was such a tangled web that at least one if not all was going to end up hurt. As I said before I'm not going to say what did happen but I will tell you, that for me at least the last fifty pages or so were a real emotional rollercoaster. I was actually reading the book in quite a public place and was really embarrassed to discover tears trickling down my face - so be warned - it's best to finish off this book at home in the privacy of your own company with a box of tissues nearby.

So overall I felt this was a really good read. It is 600 pages long but I didn't think that it lost its way or even meandered at all. And even after all those pages I was quite sorry when I had finished the book and it was all over! ...more

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