Cathy Kelly, Best of Friends

Cathy Kelly, Best of Friends: I love Cathy Kelly as an author and have read most of her books. Like all the others I have read this is a great book telling the story of 4 woman who become great friends after a loss in the village they live in.

Best of Friends

Cathy Kelly

Downtown, Feb 2005, $14.00, 528 pp.

ISBN: 0743490258

Abby Barton has become a famous TV personality with the success of her show "Declutter: Your Home and Your Life." However, she feels pressure on all sides from her producer to her spouse, but mostly her reticent teenage daughter Jess.

Medical receptionist Lizzie Shanahan nurtures everyone but herself. However, in spite of caring for patients, her adult children and even her former husband Myles, Lizzie feels alone; her despondency is augmented by Myles finding a new love in his life.

After a decade in the States, Erin Kennedy and her spouse Greg return to Ireland where he begins a new job in Cork. However, she worries about returning to Ireland after fleeing from her family years ago to live in Boston, and Chicago.

Sally Richardson is contented with raising her children with a loving spouse, but her happiness is tempered by cancer. When she dies, her three friends, who believed they had the weight of the world on their back, learn what life is all about.

The four subplots are handled with dexterity so though rotated in no obvious order; readers with a degree of difficulty will be able keep track of how each of the key females feels. Readers will care about these women and hope for the best for each of them. The character-driven subplots are complex and interesting as the surviving trio begins to appreciate what they already have. Cathy Kelly furbishes a fine tale with the moral of live life to the fullest with loved ones for one day you will be an angel sitting on a cloud looking down, hopefully with joy towards those you cherish.

Harriet Klausner