Woman to Woman by Cathy Kelly
CATHY KELLY
HEADLINE
Cathy Kelly is a feature writer and film critic for the Sunday World newspaper in Dublin, where she also writes the Dear Cathy agony column. Woman to Woman is her first novel and it spent eight weeks at Number One on the Irish Times bestseller list. Cathy Kelly lives in Dublin and is busy writing her second novel.
Praise for Woman to Woman:
“All the ingredients of the blockbuster are here … Kelly satisfies the most important requirement of the writer … her book is a page-turner’ Sunday Independent, Madeleine Keane “The funny and clever tale of two modern women struggling with life and love …” Sunday World “This is a powerful story for the Nineties woman… sharp, sexy and witty with a large dose of real life thrown in … so realistic you really feel you’re in on the action yourself Star, Olivia McMahon “A good read’ Woman’s Way, Deirdre O’Flynn “A tour-de-force of the Jilly Cooper genre, a must as a pool-side companion’ Lifetimes, Tim O’Brien “It’s a good read to bring on your holiday or just to relax with in the evenings’ Evening Herald, Lara MacMillan “An unprecedented success
story for a debut novel’ Sun Also by Cathy Kelly She’s the One
Copyright 1997 Cathy Kelly The right of Cathy Kelly to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 1998 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING 40 39 38 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 0 7472 6052 4
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St. Ives pic
HEADLINE BOOK “PUBLISHING
A division of Hodder Headline PLC ” Fusion Road 338 Euston Road London
NW1 3BH To Mum, with all my love
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To John, who told me to stop talking about writing a book and to just do it, and for encouraging me all the way when I actually did. To Lucy, who gave me so much support, made the coffee, poured the gin and brought Tamsin out to meet her boyfriends while I typed. To Mum, who’s been saying I could do it ever since we started that ill-fated Mills & Boon, and who has helped me in so many ways, always. To Dad for minding the zuppies, to Francis and Anne for their endless encouragement, and to Laura, my godchild, for being so absolutely adorable and a complete bookworm at the age of two. And of course, to Tamsin, who was here for all of it. Thanks to Saran Hamilton for being a wonderful friend and for coming up with the title, thanks to Moira Harmon, Joanne McElgunn and Lisa McDonnell for reading bits and not telling me it was brutal. Thanks to the Sunday World’s editor, Colm MacGinty and deputy editor, J. P. Thompson for making this a fantastic time in my life career-wise. And thank you to all my friends and colleagues in the Sunday World who are too numerous to name and who encouraged me, asked how it was going, helped me with computer nightmares and never asked if I was writing a sequel to War and Peace because it was taking so long. You know who you are. Thanks also to my fellow movie critics for the same thing.
Thanks to Padraig O’Reilly for amazing poster shots and lots of advice for the next book, and to Siobhain McClafferty or Cover Shots and her team for the others.
Last, but by no means least, thanks to everyone at Poolbeg for their enthusiasm, hard work and sheer professionalism. To Joe Bruise O’Brien
for being a marvelous editor, who was endlessly encouraging when I was down in the dumps with brain rot, who helped me learn the difference between writing a book and writing for a newspaper and who gave me lots of wine (thanks, Joe.) to cheer me up. I couldn’t have done it without you, Kate. To Philip MacDermott, Paula, Kieran, Sarah, Nicole and everyone else at Poolbeg for their hard work. And thanks to Jilly
Cooper whose wonderful novels kept me going through all the dreadful bits.