Telegraph
Anna Walsh has left her cosy, cloying Dublin family to make it as a PR in New York. Everything goes her way. She lands a high-pressure job for a leading cosmetics firm and falls in love with Aidan, a handsome Boston Catholic. They agree to marry even though Anna suspects that Aidan is still half in love with his childhood sweetheart. The story takes an unexpected turn when Anna suffers horrific injuries in a mysterious car crash and returns to Dublin to recover.
What began as a frothy satirical romance turns into a profound story of abandonment and loss. Marian Keyes's great strength is her ability to handle the tragic and the comic with the same unforced ease. Her depiction of the tense, vicious world of public relations is brilliantly researched and blisteringly funny. She also ventures into the unusual realm of naff spiritualists and Pentecostal churches as Anna tries to mend her broken heart.
This is odd territory for popular fiction but Keyes approaches it with her characteristic generosity and humour. Anybody Out There? is a rare blend of genres, a richly enjoyable satire and an inspirational tale of one woman's triumph over despair.