Anyone for Me? - Fiona Cassidy (2010)

Thirty-four-year-old Ruby is about to marry her love Luke but first she would like some answers about her birth mother - like where did she inherit her fiery-red hair and fiery-hot temper. But Ruby's widowed mother, Isobel, is very unwilling to talk about the adoption and tries to steer her away from delving into the past. As Ruby deals with her upcoming nuptials - assisted by her flamboyant hired help Gabriel and her bridesmaid Frankie (from Cassidy's debut novel Anyone for Seconds?) - she begins to track down the woman who gave her up. Meanwhile something fishy is going on when new owners move into the manor house near her mother's cottage in Donegal and Ruby is on the case. Will Ruby find all the answers she's searching for? The subject of adoption and searching for a sense of belonging is handled very sensitively, a matter clearly close to the author's heart. But for me the star was definitely the quick-tempered Ruby. You just wouldn't want to get on her wrong side.

Imagine if you stumble on a secret which means you're no longer sure who are you. The summary for Fiona Cassidy's second novel Anyone for Me? says: "Meet feisty, fun-loving Ruby Ross - thirty four, mad red hair, mad (in general), adopted and searching for answers (most pressingly being precisely whose genes are responsible for the most unmanageable bonce in the country?). She's impulsive, compulsive and unaware of what she's about to unleash in her quest for the truth. Her journey will take her from the Tyrone village of Swiftstown to Belfast to the rolling hills of Donegal (where the scenery is lovely but the roads are bad and burst tyres are plenty.) Isobel Ross is larger than life, living in a picturesque cottage in Donegal in the grounds of an old manor house which has been turned into a hotel - but why are the new owners so keen to get rid of her? She's harbouring secrets from the past and fiercely protective of her adopted daughter. Can she stop the wilful Ruby from opening a nasty can of worms or will the hand of fate intervene and give Ruby the answers she doesn't expect or might not want. Throw in Ruby's forthcoming nuptials to the lovely Luke, Frankie, her best friend and bling-loving bridesmaid, a wedding planner called Gabriel who wears more make-up than the bride-to-be and a dusty box found in an attic which leaves many questions unanswered and you have a bewildered and rather ferocious Ruby asking is there....Anyone For Me?" Cassidy is currently working on her third title, Anyone for Sangria?

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