Happy Birthday, Marian Keyes!

Goddess Marian Keyes

Happy Birthday to Marian Keyes, Best Author on The Planet! Only 3 more days to her new novel, The Mystery of Mercy Close, and I 5-Star recommend her Mammy Walsh family history!

I fangirl double-heart Marian Keyes because her books shine with the magic of laughing at the sadness of life.

I dedicated my novel, Ros, to Marian Keyes—#FREE this week.

To Marian Keyes—and to the Marian Keyes in every woman—that smart, funny, sad, put-upon, brave part of your soul that makes this world a brighter place.

The World’s Worst Novelist?

My novel Ros shows up next to Irish author Amanda McKittrick Ros, and her book, Irene Iddesleigh. Ros self-published in 1897, and her reputation as the world’s worst novelist is being remembered at the Celebrate Literary Belfast festival later this month, (Awful Author Addicted to Alliteration Achieves Acclaim Again!).

Amanda McKittrick Ros

This teacher/novelist/poet provided hours of entertainment to fellow writers—an Oxford literary group, which included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, held competitions to see who could read her work the longest without laughing. When a critic sarcastically called it “the book of the century,”  Ros suggested he was so hostile because he was secretly in love with her.

“. . .He found himself, altogether unconsciously, clasping her to his bosom, whilst the ruby rims which so recently proclaimed accusations and innocence met with unearthly sweetness, chasing every fault over the hills of doubt . . .”

#ThingsICan’tUnSee

I sometimes work out at this lovely gym. There can be impressive sights . . .  #ThingsICan’tUnSee:(
(I wonder if they are going to ban nude foot-pumicing in the public lounge?) #BlizzardWarnings

You’d Be An Eejit Not To Read This Gobshite . . .

One week and counting to the goddess Marian Keyes’ newest novel, The Mystery of Mercy Close, and only four more shopping days ’til her birthday! To get the party started, The Best Author on the Planet released a short ebook, Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family.

You’d be an eejit not to read this gobshite. (That’s the only Irish I know.) Though I am diligently working the phrase, `taking agin’ into my daily speech. (I’m taking agin my family who keeps telling me to knock it off.)

Mammy had me when talking about her next-door neighbors, the Kilfeathers: “Lovely people. We are terrific pals, of course. And yet, I find that I very much hate Mrs. Kilfeather.” Which makes me love Mammy that much more.

“They say the Eskimos have a hundred words for snow, but we Irish seem to have at least a hundred for the state of being intoxicated.” Mammy is hilaire, as Helen would say, and is a woman after my own heart in the kitchen, in C is for Cooking.

From tales of the Jolly Boys and those hideous Feathery Strokers, (public enemy number one), Mammy and her girls feel like part of the family. From A-Z, we get highlights of all five Walsh girls and their exploits, and Mammy even shares sweet stories about her grandchildren, and by sweet I mean nightmare. (Her word, not mine!)

Mammy Walsh is such a superstar. (Does Amazon sell the Eeejit Stick yet?) I applaud her infatuation with Slicers! and the women who wear them. Though I had to Google Padre Pio and Cornetto (stupid American), I laughed aloud at the V is for Vajazzling scene, especially when Mammy can’t resist reminding Helen: “When you think about it,” I said, happy as you please, “I must have done it at least five times!'” Brilliant! Marian Keyes does the best dialogue on the planet!

Thank you, Marian Keyes,
I fangirl double-heart xoxo you!