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Whose Life is it Anyway?
Whose Life is it Anyway?
Aug 1, 2025 6:01 PM

Author:Sinéad Moriarty

Whose Life is it Anyway?

Also published under the title Keeping It In the Family.

In her fifth novel, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Sinéad Moriarty has done it again: taken a complex topic - what happens when a young woman falls in love with someone dramatically different than the kind of man her family would have expected - and created an insightful, gripping and moving story filled with delightfully sparky characters, plenty of straight-talking, and all her trademark fun and humour. In balancing of light and shade, pathos and comedy, Sinéad manages to pull off a unique feat - a story that combines the provocative qualities of a Jodi Picoult story with the warmth and humour of Marian Keyes.

It's tricky for Niamh O'Flaherty, growing up in a North London home that's a shrine to all things Irish. But it's even trickier being an adult and realizing that her family expects her to settle down with a nice Irish lad, especially now that she's living in Dublin.

When Niamh finally meets the love of her life he is the last person she would expect to fall for her. Pierre is older and an intellectual, but she loves his ability to laugh at himself, his calmness and strength of character, and, of course, his stunning looks.

There's just one problem: if Pierre's parents - Jean and Fleur - are sniffy about their pride and joy hooking up with a girl who writes a fluffy newspaper column, her parents, Mick and Annie, are going to go ballistic when they hear that their daughter intends to marry someone who couldn't be less Irish if he tried . . .

Sinéad Moriarty's novels have sold over half a million copies in Ireland and the UK and she is a four times nominee for the popular fiction Irish Book Award. She has won over readers and critics telling stories that are funny, humane, moving and relevant to modern women. Whose Life Is It Anyway? is Sinéad at her very best.

Sinéad Moriarty lives with her family in Dublin. Her other titles are: The Baby Trail; A Perfect Match; From Here to Maternity; In My Sister's Shoes; Pieces of My Heart; Me and My Sisters and This Child of Mine.

Reviews

Makes you really care ... plenty of laughs and more than a bit of substance

—— Irish Mail On Sunday

Marian Keyes has for years been the undisputed queen of applying the light tender touch to dark, painful subjects - Sinéad Moriarty is now a worthy competitor

—— Sunday Independent

A gift at unwrapping a good, plausible tale and creating likeable characters that you care about

—— Irish Independent

Fabulous ... at times touching and at others genuinely hilarious

—— Sunday Times

A perfect book to curl up with ... will have you laughing one minute and nodding sympathetically the next

—— Sunday Business Post

Does romance very well ... wonderfully described and convincing

—— Irish Independent

Beautifully observed

—— Bella

Another corker of a tale

—— Richard Madeley

Rarely does a first novelist write with such confidence and grace. 'All We Ever Wanted Was Everything' is a marvelous book

—— Ayelet Waldman, author of "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry
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