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    The Perfect Marriage: A moving novel of love and marriage
    Unavailable
    The Perfect Marriage: A moving novel of love and marriage
    Unavailable
    The Perfect Marriage: A moving novel of love and marriage
    Ebook329 pages6 hours

    The Perfect Marriage: A moving novel of love and marriage

    By Kate Kerrigan

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    'This story is written with so much heart, its beat is palpable in every word on every page' Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You.

    New York food writer Tressa returns from honeymoon worried that she has married her impossibly handsome new husband Dan out of late-thirties panic instead of love.

    In 1930's Ireland, her grandmother, Bernadine, is married off to the local schoolteacher after her family are unable to raise a dowry for her to marry her true love, Michael.

    During the first year of her marriage, Tressa distracts herself from her stay-or-go dilemma by working on her grandmother's recipes, searching for solace and answers through their preparation.

    Through the stories of these two women The Perfect Marriage challenges the modern ideal of romantic love as a given and ponders whether true love can really be learned.

    *Originally published as Recipes for a Perfect Marriage.*

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHead of Zeus
    Release dateNov 1, 2015
    ISBN9781784974862
    Unavailable
    The Perfect Marriage: A moving novel of love and marriage
    Author

    Kate Kerrigan

    Kate Kerrigan was born in Scotland to Irish parents and reared in London. She began her career in Journalism at the age of nineteen rising to become editor of various publications before moving to Ireland in 1990 to become a full-time author. Living in the picturesque village of Killala on the west coast of Ireland, she has two sons Leo and Tom with husband Niall. Her novels include Recipes for a Perfect Marriage which was shortlisted for the 2006 Romantic Novel of the Year Award and Miracle of Grace. Ellis Island was a TV Book Club Summer Read and the story of Ellie Hogan was continued in City of Hope published in 2012. Land of Dreams, the final part in this compelling trilogy, publishes in 2013. www.katekerrigan.ie http://katekerriganauthor.blogspot.com/

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    Reviews for The Perfect Marriage

    3.5/5

    58 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is the first Kate Kerrigan book that I've read. It was quite a nice read, quite predictable in parts. I did enjoy the writing style and it kept me interested. I found Tressa pretty annoying although I could understand how she felt at times.I felt sorry for James, how he stayed in that marriage to Bernadine for so long I'll never know. The relationship between Bernadine and all of the other characters makes me feel sorry for her too. The partner she loved disappeared, she had to marry this school teacher at her parents request, her relationship with her parents and daughter, her love for Michael after all those years. It makes you feel sad that she appeared to have such little happiness.3.5/5
    • 3/5
      A normal, modern girl, who believes that you sleep with a series of men until you find The One, finds herself married to Dan, and horrified at all the things about him that annoy her. The book alternates between her story and that of her grandmother, Bernadine, who in Ireland was denied the chance to marry the young man she loved, and was forced to marry James. She let her bitterness cloud their marriage for over 50 years, until finally as he is dying she realizes love is an action, not a feeling. Both stories were interesting in how the women came to a mature realization that marriage takes work... But they were both too immature and selfish to really enjoy the stories.
    • 3/5
      March 2011 Church of the Cross Book Club selection.

      I have mixed feelings on the book myself, but it made for an excellent discussion as we had a couple people who loved it and a couple for hated it. For me, I didn't want to put it down once I got started, but after finishing and thinking about it, the messages didn't sit all that well with me. I completely agree that love is not an easy thing and demands work, but was put off by Prunty's too perfect male characters and unlikeable female narrators. The way the characters were constructed led to me feeling like the "work" of love was all put down as the women needing to change themselves. I think the book would have really benefited from having some sort of male viewpoint - it might have made things seem more balanced. Also, the inconsistencies in dates, ages and historical accuracy made my mom crazy, but I didn't notice them at all. I think I wasn't expecting that kind of attention to detail in this style of book for some reason. Food for thought.
    • 5/5
      Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty is one of my favorite books that I stumbled upon by accident. The story is about Tressa Nolan, a woman about to turn 40, who marries this kindhearted man, Dan, who loves her completely. Tressa only wants the marriage her grandparents had, or thought they had. Tressa's new husband is the super in their apartment building, and this embarrasses her along with Dan's unsophisticated ways. She begins to doubt her love for Dan and wonders if she just married her husband because she was getting older. Tressa is in the process of taking her grandmother's recipes and publishing them in a cookbook. While going through her grandmother's recipes she finds notes and letters that tell the story of the grandmother's life. The story alternates between the present and the past. Secrets are revealed, and valuable lessons are learned about love and marriage.
    • 5/5
      This book was quite a good read or listen in my case. It was narrated by Caroline Lennon and she is quite good - the story is told by Bernadine (Irish accent) and her grand-daughter Tressa (American accent) and not bad too.Tressa Nolan has returned from her honeymoon wondering if she married Dan for the right reason - or did she just marry him because she doesn't want to be alone into old age? Tressa is a food writer and she starts writing a book using her grandmother's receipes and at the same time her mother Neve, gives her Beradine's diary to read.Bernadine wanted to marry her first love Michael but her parents couldn't pay a dowry for her and her wealthy aunt wouldn't so Bernadine is basically given in marriage by her father to the local school teacher James. It took Bernadine a lifetime of marriage to realize that she did indeed love her husband.These stories are told entwined, with the tracks interchanging between the two stories - I really enjoyed it. It certainly left me thinking at end of it.The funny thing is I was listening to another story "Wildflower Hill" and it also a story told similaniously by a grand-daughter and her grandmother.