Rosie Dunne Book

Sometimes you have to look at life in a whole new way . . .

From the bestselling author of PS, I Love You comes a delightfully enchanting novel about what happens when two people who are meant to be together just can't seem to get it right.

Rosie and Alex are destined for one another, and everyone seems to know it but them. Best friends since childhood, their relationship gets closer by the day, until Alex gets the news that his family is leaving Dublin and moving to Boston. At 17, Rosie and Alex have just started to see each other in a more romantic light. Devastated, the two make plans for Rosie to apply to colleges in the U.S. She gets into Boston University, Alex gets into Harvard, and everything is falling into place, when on the eve of her departure, Rosie gets news that will change their lives forever: She's pregnant by a boy she'd gone out with while on the rebound from Alex. Her dreams for college, Alex, and a glamorous career dashed, Rosie stays in Dublin to become a single mother, while Alex pursues a medical career and a new love in Boston. But destiny is a funny thing, and in this novel, structured as a series of clever e-mails, letters, notes, and a trail of missed opportunities, Alex and Rosie find out that fate isn't done with them yet.

From the gifted author of PS, I Love You comes this charming, romantic, addictively page-turning novel that will keep readers laughing and guessing until the very last page.

Cecelia Ahern, the 22-year-old daughter of Ireland's prime minister, holds a degree in Journalism and Media Communications. The author of PS, I Love You, she lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Publishers Weekly

Ahern (PS, I Love You) uses letters, notes, e-mails and instant messages to narrate her poignant second novel about thwarted love and missed opportunities. Plucky Rosie Dunne is infatuated with her best friend since childhood, Alex Stewart, but Alex has always been oblivious. After he moves from Ireland to the U.S. with his family, the two keep in touch, planning to reunite-first at Rosie's prom and, later, at college. But Rosie has the kind of bad luck you see in the movies: Alex's plane is delayed, and so Rosie attends the prom with "Brian the Whine," who promptly knocks her up. Rosie decides to have the baby, thereby missing her opportunity to study hotel management at Boston College and hang out with Harvard-bound Alex. At this point-which isn't very far in-the novel begins to suffer from an overfull mailbox. It seems that everyone in Rosie's life sends her (and each other) missives, and this flood of mail weighs the novel down as the years pass. Rosie Dunne is a worthy protagonist, complex enough to be compelling and ordinary enough to be believable. But Rosie and Alex's early, futile get-together attempts are summarized too quickly to be satisfying, and the letters between Rosie's now adolescent daughter, Katie, and her best friend, a boy named Toby, are too obviously reminiscent of Rosie's childhood correspondence with Alex. Implausibility rears its head again when characters sum up their lives in overly serious, long-winded paragraphs foreign to the chatty, impromptu format of e-mail. But the novel endears despite its flaws, thanks to Rosie and our endless appetite for stories of love finally requited. (Feb. 9) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.