Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

Chicago Tribune

Thoroughly enchanting...Keyes crafts virtually every sentence of this very charming novel into an art form of high hilarity.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Lucy Sullivan, the eponymous heroine of Irish writer Keyes's second offbeat romantic comedy to be published in the U.S. (after Watermelon), fancies herself simultaneously miserable and happy. A 26-year-old Londoner, Lucy is the kind of woman who thinks that any man who's decent to her must be Mr. Wrong. But when she visits a fortune-teller with a trio of mismatched friends, a marriage is predicted for the near future. When the fortune-teller's prophecies for the other three come true in peculiar ways, even disbelieving, boyfriendless Lucy begins to suspect that, somehow, wedding bells will ring for her. The identity of the lucky man will come as no surprise, though Lucy remains oblivious until the very end, but there are many eligible bachelors on the scene, among them Gus, Lucy's sexy but unreliable new lover; Daniel, her oldest friend; Chuck, a handsome American; and Adrian, the video shop man. The attendant mayhem includes drunken meals at ethnic restaurants, flamenco dancing accidents, blind dates gone wrong and many delicious confessions and revelations. As Lucy says, "I was still at that stage in my life when I thought that weekdays were for recovering from the weekend," but more often than not, her weekdays are as full of exhausting fun as her weekends. Surprisingly for a comic novel, the book also takes on the serious themes of clinical depression and alcoholism, handling both with sensitivity and humor. Throughout, the effervescent narrative is fueled by witty repartee; though its outcome may be predictable, its sentiments are heartfelt, and its progress is sprightly. Fans of Bridget Jones will be delighted. Agent, Russell Galen of Scovil Chichak Galen. (Aug.) FYI: Touchstone Pictures has optioned the rights to Keyes's novel, Rachel's Holiday. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Following the successful Watermelon, the Irish-born, London-based Keyes introduces us to Lucy, luckless in love but destined (according to a tarot card reading) to be married within the year.

Jill M. Smith

While much of Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married is written in a somewhat humorous vein, it certainly proves the old saying, “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” Following the exploits of Lucy’s self-centered and shallow crowd rapidly wears thin.
— Romantic Times

Kirkus Reviews

The charms of her irresistible debut, Watermelon (1998), are diluted in Keyes's latest effort, in which an Irish office-worker in London, who enjoys the swinging-singles life but has horrible luck with men, suddenly understands why she chooses to cavort with losers. Lucy, a diminutive lass with a wicked sense of humor, shares an apartment with a couple of women who are every bit as eager to party hearty as she is. The three live for their weekend binges, and for the men encountered thereby, but when she goes to a fortune-teller with her workmates, the news of imminent marriage she receives makes Lucy look at her next boyfriend in an entirely new way. Not that he•s terribly different from his predecessors: Gus, picked up at a bash that Lucy attends, sweeps her off her feet and drinks all the friend's Guinness. Though he•s penniless, jobless, and without a home he's willing to take her to, his charm and boyish looks are enough to make Lucy think he's The One, so he moves in and helps her drink through her wages. Even when he disappears for three weeks without an explanation, she still takes him back•to the horror of her roommates. But then Gus goes for good, just in time for Lucy's mom to announce she's leaving her incontinent drunk of a husband, making Lucy feel obligated to live with her dad and turn things right for him. When she•s back home, the ugly truth finally dawns: all her men resemble Daddy. But once she sees the light, she also sees there•s a man who doesn't fit the pattern•and he's been waiting patiently for her to realize it. An odd mix of witty dialogue and hard-core alcoholic reality that•s compromised by flat characterization, particularly in Lucy's case. Herlimited development makes her too slight to bear the burden of her transformation with any credibility.