Popular Fiction/Where Rainbows End By Cecelia Ahern: When Cecelia Ahern's new novel dropped with a gentle thud on my desk, disrupting a pleasant mid-morning daydream, I rewarded the dropper with a dark look before flicking through it with all the enthusiasm of a condemned woman perusing the menu before her last death-row meal, writes Róisín Ingle
Unlike Richard and Judy, whose seal of approval sent PS, I Love You flying off the shelves in Britain - the pair did the same for Joe O'Connor's wonderful Star of the Sea, so it's not all bad - I did not enjoy the bit of Ahern's first novel that I managed to read. I found the sugary tone irritating, the main character, Holly, thoroughly yawn-worthy and the mentions of the author's in-law's band, Westlife, gratuitous in the extreme. Still, what do I know? - it went on to be a runaway bestseller.
It seemed unlikely this reader would be rolling out the welcome mat for her second effort - especially when it bears the dreadful title, Where Rainbows End.
And the story's format isn't encouraging either. It is told via a series of letters, e-mails, instant computer messages, chatroom conversations, wedding invitations, birthday cards, a will, and any other missives relevant to the life of Ahern's leading lady, Rosie Dunne. Ahern, aka the Taoiseach's youngest daughter, is clearly a fan of epistolary novels. The plot of PS, I Love You revolved around 10 letters from Holly's husband, written before he died, advising his young wife how to continue her life without him. In her second novel, the letters and e-mails tell the story of best friends Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart and their complicated "will-they-won't-they" relationship which begins at the age of seven and is not fully resolved until they are in their 50s.
With the author relinquishing the traditional narrator role, the reader is left to pore over the dispatches, which feature Rosie and Alex, their friends and their family, their children and their lovers.
The fast-moving format is slightly disorienting at first but with a little perseverance it soon becomes clear that Where Rainbows End is not nearly as disappointing as I found PS, I Love You.
Fifty pages in, nosing through Rosie's electronic postbag has not only become painless but is actually faintly enjoyable. By the last page, this initially reluctant reader was using words like "uplifting" and "heartwarming" when asked what she thought of the book. What in the name of Richard and Judy is going on? Well, for starters in Rosie and Alex, Ahern has created rounded characters with substance. Rosie becomes pregnant from a one-night stand, struggles as a single mother and endures an adulterous marriage, while Alex, who is studying to be a heart surgeon in Boston, marries, divorces and fathers two children by different women.
Some of the writing fizzes - especially the voice of Rosie's best friend, Ruby - and because almost the entire book is fashioned from messages and letters, the gentle twist in the conventionally narrated epilogue gives more meaning to what is a predictable but satisfying ending. (Having said that, and without wishing to give the game away, the book's two text messages don't fit within this twist in the tale and this minor editing error is annoying.) In the US, the book has been repackaged as Rosie Dunne: A Novel and given a sassier cover. This version may have a sappy cover and an even sappier title but as a portrait of contemporary social communication - the exchanges in the Relieved Divorced Dubliners' Chatroom are a highlight - it is far from twee. As a study of platonic boy-girl friendship it manages to be both subtle and thought-provoking. As a book to snuggle up with on a dark winter's evening it is more than adequate. But whether Ahern's next novel will see her ditching the letters and trying a less formulaic writing style remains to be seen.
Róisín Ingle is an Irish Times journalist
Where Rainbows End By Cecelia Ahern Harper Collins, 453pp. £10.99