Product Description

After years of being the perfect wife and mother, Francesca Kirwan's life is changed irrevocably one dismal autumn morning when her husband Mark forgets his mobile phone. In the space of ten minutes her comfortable, safe, uneventful existence is completed shattered. With her life turned upside down and an extremely uncertain future ahead of her, she has two choices...sink or swim! Francesca decides to get a life, but first she must deal with razor-sharp international banker Nikki Langan. Super-babe is ten years younger and two stone lighter than Francesca. Sculpted, toned and dressed to kill, Nikki wants it all and she doesn't intend to let anyone, least of all Francesca, stand in her way. But youth and beauty aren't everything, and Francesca proves to be a far tougher adversary than the glamorous career girl had anticipated. After a shaky start, Francesca's life takes a decidedly upward turn. New job, new friends, new lifestyle, and dishy journalist Ralph Casson showing more than a professional interest in her, much to Mark's immense displeasure. Francesca decides to throw a party, and that's when the fun really starts! Revenge is a dish best served cold...especially if you've been on a diet.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102028 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Within the first few pages of Patricia Scanlan's ninth book, Francesca's Party, a life is turned upside-down: Francesca follows her husband of 22 years to Dublin airport to bring him the mobile phone he's forgotten. But in the terminal building she watches as her beloved Mark passionately kisses Nikki Langan, "a beautiful, bright, sexy sensual woman", and realises that everything has changed. Patricia Scanlan catapults us into the emotions of a woman who has been happy as a domestic goddess, but now feels overwhelmed with bitterness:

She felt so belittled and used and worthless. How would she ever get through this? The future seemed so empty and dark, full of despair and struggle.

It is a bleak awakening, but not, ultimately, an unrewarding one. Francesca is forced to re-assess her life, and to find the courage to start again. She goes from wailing into the pillow like a banshee and wondering how to tell her two sons that their dad is a philanderer, to a confident woman who uses her charm and organisational skills to forge a career in PR. She buys a house and even manages to find some sympathy for her "deceiving, lying despicable bastard" of a husband and his troublesome new relationship. Scanlan celebrates Francesca's hard-worn independence with insight and verve, and the reader would tend to agree that this particular character has "an awful lot to look forward to". --Eithne Farry

Irish Independent
'Her best yet…Pacy, poignant, entertaining and believable'

Irish Times
'Scanlan's writing is perfectly pitched…Her fans will love this book'

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Customer Reviews

Great story-telling
It's a testament to the strength of Patricia Scanlan's writing that her readers, whether male or female, can empathise with her characters. In this tale of a betrayed wife, we meet a real woman: no Jackie Collins-esque maneater, but a real human being, complete with frailties, faults and vulnerablility. Scanlan manages to avoid the obvious trap of creating a cartoonish lothario in Mark and a martyred heroine in Francesca. Even "the other woman" is portrayed with depth and sensitivity. And that's what keeps you reading. You KNOW these people: you work with them, you live with them, you've grown up with them. You quite possibly might BE them.

This is old-fashioned story-telling at its best. No pretensions. No clever-cleverness. Something some of Ms. Scanlan's peers might care to note. In an age where there is a worrying return to the boorish objectification of women (check MTV, magazines and a lot of the newer TV dramas if you don't believe me), it is refreshing to presented with such a credible character in a book. Somewhere out there, there MUST be a TV producer who can recognise the excellent mini-series waiting within these pages. And when that is broadcast, perhaps Scanlan's wonderful "Promises, Promises" and "Mirror, Mirror" will be filmed too.

Patricia Scanlan is an outrageously under-recognised author in Britain. This book only makes that status even harder to believe.

Have'nt i read this plot line before?
Dull and predictable this book is another story of a wife being replaced by younger new improved version of herself. This book is uncannily like the plot of Cathy Kelly's bestseller "Woman to Woman" only five years too late! I realy don't think woman should be subjected to the depressing ramblings of yet another marital breakup and an unrealistic cateripillar turns into social butterfly yarn. This book is one long tired cliche and after a long hard day at work I can think of better books to read.Save your cash, this book is far too depressing!

Couldn't put it down!
This book gets going from the first page. I hadn't read a book in quite a while due to having two babies and I picked this up at my sister's one day and after taking a quick look at it and before I knew it I had read the first chapter. Patricia Scanlan really knows how to tell a story. I just had to keep reading it and when I wasn't I was thinking about it, it felt so real, as if these people were friends of mine! A definite holiday read but be warned take a second book because you are likely to read it in the first few days around the pool!