Always and Forever
Cathy Kelly
Downtown, January 2007, $15.00
ISBN: 1416531580

In Carrickwell, Ireland three women struggle with the respective directions of their lives. Mel Redmond struggles with guilt feelings as she precariously balances her career at Lorimar with raising her two children. Cleo has just graduated from a hotel management course and wants to prove to her hotelier family that she can do the job as good, if not better than they, as she offers ideas to save the Willow Hotel, but neither her parents nor her brothers take her seriously. Daisy Farrell yearns for a baby with her long time live-in lover Alex, but fails to conceive, so they go to a fertility clinic, though he seems very reluctant and has since he became ill several years ago.

The three women find their life map devastated with detours and u-turns, as nothing goes right. That is until the opening of the new Clouds Hill Spa by Leah, who is looking to start over with a better balanced lifestyle. Mel, Daisy and Cleo find the spa gives them moments to relax, and place perspective on what matters in life and the courage to ALWAYS AND FOREVER seek to achieve what means the most to the individual; of course it is easier to try after a beauty treatment.

This is an interesting character driven contemporary fiction starring three women, each suffering from a person crisis that requires change in their lives if they are to achieve any modicum of harmony. The R&R pampering at the spa enables them to unwind and obtain perspective so that their predicament no longer seems like climbing Mount Everest. Cathy Kelly's message is simple, that everyone needs a little pampering magic.