Without a doubt this book will be one of my reads of the year. It is funny, emotional and heart-warming and for me it is the perfect read. We return to the Walsh family who are all individual characters in themselves. Anna is our main character who is returning home from New York to the village of Maumtully. The story covers her return home and how she helps old friends Brigit and Colm set up a spa retreat.

This book is just wonderful, so well written and a complete triumph. I laughed, I cried and I stayed up well past my bedtime to read it and have felt bereft since leaving the Maumtully community. Cannot rate it highly enough.

Always with the note of steel in the fun exterior, this book by Marian Keyes not only reintroduces us to the Walshes, but also points out the immense changes experienced by women going through menopause and points out that it can be quite refreshing to get as mad as hell, and not take it any more. Oh, and you can still have sex after fifty! Her depiction of small town Irish life is also the equal of any rural Irish novelist writing today and I'd love to read more about M Town.

I did enjoy this book, but I do wonder whether Anna's story needed a sequel . . . I didn't always like Anna in this story. I thought she was mean to Joey. Some of the scenes with the wider Walsh family were OTT and unnecessary in my opinion. There was lots of humour and I did like the perimenopause being highlighted. That said, I wondered if this was focussed on a bit too much. It was a shame that ageing seemed to be taboo, as in, you need Botox so your face doesn't look so lined, as several members of the Walsh family had it and Anna couldn't live without it. There were lots of secondary characters and it was hard to remember who was who. I liked the ending, but wish we'd had more time with Anna and her other half. With thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed reading about the Walsh family again.
This time the main character was Anna.
Homesick and no longer happy with her life in New York she returns home to her family in Dublin. She is looking for a new job and her sister gets her some part time hours working in a small seaside town on a new retreat being built on farmland.
Lots of funny moments and family dynamics that kept me entertained.
Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Books for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Favourite Escape is a follow on of Anna’s story 20years on from when she lost her husband in a road traffic accident (Is anybody out there)
Now on the verge of the menopause and all the ensuing symptoms and having split from her boyfriend she decides to leave her well paid job in New York and return to her family in Ireland.
As usual with this author we have a lot of humour, angst and heartbreak.
With her expertise in PR she is asked to help her sisters business out as it is being targeted by locals who are trying to scupper the development of their luxury air BnB’s. To help her in this endeavour is Joey Armstrong, they have known each other for years and not got on.
Now both more mature they are able to work together, their past is alluded to many times but no information is given which is very frustrating, eventually the whole past unfolds but it take some pages before we have the true reveal.
I did find it hard to keep track of all the characters and when it came to the big discovery of who was causing all the trouble I had to look back to remind myself who they were. At 75% in I’m afraid I became a bit fed up and skipped pages we had weeks of really nothing happening and all I wanted to know was when or if Anna and Joey would get together. Eventually at around 98% we had the answer which was done and dusted very quickly….but nicely.
My thanks to net galley and publisher for the opportunity to review this book honestly.

4.5* My Favourite Mistake is everything you want from the amazing Marian Keyes, bringing us bang up to date with the Walsh family.

Anna has grown tired of New York. The pandemic kept her from Ireland and her relationship had frittered out, the only thing keeping her in situ is her job. She decided to throw in the towel and return home to her family. They think she’s mad! Struggling to get a job, she is offered the opportunity of trying to smooth the way for Brigit and Colm, who are setting up a high end retreat on farmland adjacent to a small town. Sympathy is high as their daughter is unwell, but someone amongst the locals is trying to sabotage their development and it’s up to Anna to get everyone back on side. However, unbeknownst to Anna, the man behind the funding for the project is get old sometimes friend and other times foe, ‘Narky Joey’.

Told mainly in the present but with nods to some of the backstories in Anna’s relationships, the plot absolutely zips along.

I absolutely loved this book. Marian Keyes has a way of sweeping the reader into a world of characters, emotion and banter that is bettered by no one. My Favourite Mistake starts a little slowly, but soon gets going. The small town cast of characters are fabulous and are so richly told, that you feel like you know every single one of them. It’s a chunk at 600 pages but there isn’t a wasted word. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Thanks to the publisher Michael Joseph and Netgalley for an ARC.

Every time Marian writes a Walsh family book I’m nervous, in case it will somehow ‘spoil’ my past experiences of the family and yet each time they just get better. This one in particular struck a chord, with Anna in peri-menopause and struggling with her identity. I loved every single word and laughed and cried buckets.

Purely by coincidence, I had recently reread the first Anna Walsh book (Is There Anybody Out There?) and found it delightful to return to the characters so quickly.

My Favourite Mistake finds Anna, almost 20 years on from the first book, in a post-pandemic identity crisis that leads her to leave New York and return to Ireland, where her PR skills are called upon by a family friend and she must travel to a quiet coastal backwater to deal with locals who are up in arms about a new hotel development.

The plot from hereon in will be familiar to anyone who enjoys a cheesy Hallmark movie - big city girl winds up in a small, quirky town with equally quirky inhabitants, and high jinks ensue. It was delightful to read, and always funny (especially the periodic invasions of the Walsh family). Some may find the ending too neat, but I enjoyed having all the loose ends tied up.

One for Marian Keyes fans only. I found it overlong with too many characters who led uninteresting lives. It did not grab my attention which is a shame as I have previously enjoyed many of her previous books.

Another warm, witty and wise book from Marian Keyes. She always manages to make me feel part of the Walsh family and I miss them when they're gone! The "will they, won't they" plot features in many parts of the book, and while it is a well worn trope the author manages to imbue it with enough human emotion to make me want to find out what happens. And I loved the last few lines
Thank you to netgalley and Michael Joseph for an advance copy of this book

What a fantastic visit to the infamous Walsh family. This book focuses on Anna the one who went away to New York to work. Anna has had it hard she was widowed young and found it all hard to cope with. Then the pandemic hits and she no longer feels like New York is where she wants to be. She realises she wants to go home. Hats when the Walsh family fun begins with Mammy and her sisters. She’s always fell in and out of a patch of seeing and wanting Joey Armstrong but it fades and she unsure what she really wants.
Ending up with a pr job in the middle of Ireland she meets and befriends some good people including Joey.
Filled with sadness and hilarity this is Marian at her best. Loved catching up with the Walsh’s and making new friends.
Highly recommended

Three and a half stars.

This is a follow-up to Anybody Out There?, 18 years later. Anna Walsh was widowed at a very young age, but she managed to find a new life in New York as a beauty PR maven. Now, in her late 40s, post-lockdown her relationship with her boyfriend Angelo has amicably come to an end, she no longer cares about her job and *gasp* she's fallen out of love with New York.

So Anna returns home to Dublin where she realises it may not be as easy as she imagined to get a new job, until her mammy gets her to help out family who are in the process of building a spa retreat on the west coast of Ireland which has turned into a PR disaster, culminating in locals defacing some of the partly constructed cabins. The only snag, the money man behind the venture is Joey, a friend of her sister Rachel's partner, a man she has been avoiding for many, many years.

This is pure Marian Keyes, complete with quirky villagers, and flashbacks to when Anna first moved to New York.

I really enjoyed this, and then partway through it seemed to get a bit bogged down in rehashing Anna's relationship with her former best friend and with Joey, it felt sort of obvious to me what had happened but it felt a bit laboured and could just as easily have been explained up front.

Otherwise, this was sexy, funny, cute, everything I want from the Walsh girls.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

Marian Keyes is, to my mind, one of the finest writers at work today. She has a gift for handling the grittier and darker texture of what makes us human with a light touch and a deep respect for our differences and commonalities. Her work sings with humour and warmth, and some of the sentences in this are absolutely sublime. This is a gentler story than some, but no less powerful for that. She explores aging, menopause, sexuality and regret but always with a hunger for life, and a delight in what it means to be human, the beautiful frivolous details that make life sing. The ending of this had such a beautiful resonance to me. I kept thinking about it in the days after I read it. People can be incredibly judgemental about the phrase 'comfort reads', and it belies how skilful and powerful a writer you have to be to write a book that challenges, delights and yes, comforts the reader at a bone-deep level. A triumph.

I love Marian Keyes. I could just leave it there, but I won't. I was absolutely thrilled to be able to read this in advance of publication and will gladly sing its praises for anyone to hear. Marian is just the best at writing realistic but entertaining people and relationships. Would recommend as a balm to these bleak times.

Reuniting with the Walshes is liking meeting up with old friends. I love Marian Keyes and this re-visit to the Walshes is just gorgeous. Great storyline and character development and I just didn't want it to end. Can't wait for the next one. Highly recommended.

Absolutely brilliant, loved it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending.

Marian Keyes is gas! It's such a thrill to read her books and enjoy her wit, wisdom and insight.
My Favourite Mistake reunites us with the chaotic Walsh family and in particular Anna, who returns to Ireland for a spell to get over burn out in her PR job in New York.
She finds herself in a small Irish town, working on a project for friends. Unfortunately her "go boy", the man with the money, is Joey Armstrong, with whom she has history.
There are some fantastic characters in the book. Anna undergoes a transformation but not in the usual clichéd way of novels. We see her growing in confidence, but also shooting herself in the foot repeatedly. I liked Joey and would prefer him any day to the feathery strokers!
Marian takes her time in filling in the back stories but all the better to keep us engaged, as if we need encouragement!
Thanks for the advance copy, and thanks Marian for another great read,

Another Marian Keyes novel that revisits the Walsh family, this time focussing on Anna. Living in New York, working as a beauty PR, in a relationship with art promoter Angelo, her world is rocked when lockdown hits. She moves in with Angelo, and life changes. She realises she wants to move back to Ireland, and she finds herself helping friends Brigit and Colm with PR nightmare. A will they won't they love story is included with old acquaintance Joey, and comedy is added with numerous visits from her family, along with some new characters she meets along the way.

This is definitely not one of my favourite Keyes novels, I found it far too long and repetitive - I loved how perimenopause and its issues were discussed, but did feel it got a bit over- powering after a while, when it felt like it was all Anna mentioned! It was however lovely to revisit characters that I've been connected to for years, and to enjoy the scenery of Ireland again.

Marian Keyes' writing just gets better and better. What may seem light-hearted turns out to be thought-provoking and honest dealing with themes like the menopause and single parenting. Anna has always been my favourite Walsh sister, I absolutely loved "Anybody out there" and this is a worthy successor. The dialogue is hilarious and the warmth of the Walsh family and the local community is like a huge hug, plus it's a really interesting story! Highly recommended.

I want to stay with the Walsh family forever! Another fantastic, hilarious and well-thought out novel by Marian Keyes- she never fails to disappoint. I love revisiting the sisters from earlier books and I was so surprised at how much more depth we got to know Anna. Really can’t recommend this book enough, don’t think I’ve laughed or loved characters and their banter so much!