Marian Keyes' latest book is out today — here’s everything you need to know
Marian Keyes 15th novel, Again Rachel, has just been released. Picture: Dean Chalkley
It’s hard to get anything done today when all anyone wants to do is read Marian Keyes latest release
If you can’t wait to finish work today to get stuck in, here’s a sneak peak of what you can expect.
is the sequel to Rachel’s Holiday, one of Marian Keyes’ best-selling books. In the first instalment, Rachel Walsh is sent to The Cloisters, a rehab facility, to tackle her booze and cocaine addiction. Again, Rachel picks up twenty-five years later. While Marian said she always resisted the idea of writing a sequel, she said she was drawn back to Rachel because of their shared connection as addicts.
Nope! is part of a series of books about the Walsh family, but they can all be read as stand-alones. However, if you would like to go back and enjoy the books in the order, you should start with , then and finally,
Rachel is now a forty-something divorcee, with a steady job, a dog and a new man, Quin. She’s now Head Addiction Counsellor in the rehab centre she once attended and her only bad habit is a fondness for expensive trainers. But then her ex-husband returns, and her life is thrown back into chaos…
As well as our heroine Rachel, all of the Walshes are back for this latest instalment. There are the four other Walsh sisters — Claire, Maggie, Anna and Helen — some of whom are leaving wildly different lives… as well as mammy and daddy Walsh. Luke Costello also returns to shake things up. Be still our beating hearts.
Quin is Rachel’s new fella on the block. The pair met at a meditation retreat a couple of years ago and he knows “all the smartest restaurants” in Dublin. There’s also a host of new characters in the form of Rachel’s ‘ducklings’ — that is the addicts she’s helping in The Cloisters.
The novel will centre around Luke coming back into Rachel’s life, and the everyday difficulties of being a recovering addict. Rachel, like Marian, has been sober since her stint in rehab almost three decades ago. But in a recent interview with , Keyes said, for an addict “every single day there is a possibility that your life could kind of slip off, slip out of being normal and fall through the cracks again.”
When you finish you can find more Marian Keyes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Her new show , which she co-hosts with Irish comedian Tara Flynn, sees her attempt to solve listeners' problems. So far, the duo has addressed awkward in-laws, frizzy hair and badly-dressed boyfriends. Heart-warming and hilarious, it’s the perfect soundtrack to your morning commute (even better if that commute is still from the bed to the kitchen).
