One Wish By Maria Duffy

[amazon_link id=”1444743694″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’One Wish’ is Maria Duffy’s latest book.

When Londoner Becky Greene moved to Ireland, she was ready for a fresh start – and to leave her dysfunctional family far behind. But when she discovers that she’s pregnant, after a one-night stand, all of a sudden she suddenly has more than herself to think about.

Fast-forward four years and now her daughter Lilly is asking questions about her father. While tracking down high-flying property developer Dennis Prendergast is the last thing Becky wants to do, she knows that Lilly has a right to know who her father is. But when Becky finally locates Dennis, she discovers that his life has taken a very different route. And finding out he has a daughter is definitely not in his five-year plan.

Can people ever really change? As Becky comes to know the person Dennis is now, and a little more about herself, she begins to think that maybe people can.

I really don’t like it when I read a book and I don’t enjoy it. It almost feels like I’m letting the author down and sadly this was the case with Maria Duffy’s new book ‘One Wish’.

I tried my hardest to enjoy it and there were some likeable elements about the story but think it was because I found the lead character Becky such a hard woman to like.

The story of ‘One Wish’ is about Becky Greene who after a one night stand becomes pregnant. As Becky’s parents were both alcoholics and her father was abusive, Becky is determined to give her little girl the best life that she possibly can, filled with love and happiness but minus a father. But as Lilly gets older, she becomes obsessed with finding out who her father is. Eventually Becky admits defeat and begins to look for Dennis, the man who she met that night. Unbeknown to Becky, Dennis’ life has taken a disastrous turn. After being hit hard by the recession, Dennis lost everything including his home and now moves from doorway to doorway with his meagre possessions.

The story is seen primarily from the perspective of Becky and Dennis. As Becky begins to look for Dennis and her shock at how things have turned out for the once successful business man. The scenes with Dennis were the only parts of the book that I found really interesting as it seemed that Maria really researched the state of homelessness in Dublin and addressed the issue that there is hope and help available. Dennis is a great character, humble and grateful, he accepts his life with occasional bitterness but mostly he tries to work hard to get his act together.

Like I initially said, I found Becky to be a hard character. In her management position at a bank, she was cold and arrogant towards her colleagues, making scathing remarks when someone was laughing and overall I didn’t like her. Her own upbringing was a difficult one so that was probably why she was so controlling in her own life and with others around her. I found her reaction to Dennis quite surprising, it was as though he had unknowingly let her down with his state of affairs and I regularly found myself getting angry with her.

Other characters that featured in the story were Alice who was Becky’s nanny and friend, she was a lovely, heartwarming character with a kind heart and was almost like a mother to Becky. She provided a older perspective to life and often had some wisdom to offer whereas Becky’s other friend Kate, was the younger of the three and a lot more outspoken, rarely pausing to think about the consequences. Alice and Kate had their own problems in the book and both made for interesting side issues as the story flowed along.

As one of Ireland’s new bestselling authors, Maria Duffy writes an interesting story that strongly highlights the homelessness issue in Ireland. Regrettably I didn’t enjoy ‘One Wish’ but that’s not to say that I will give up on this author, it just wasn’t for me.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”1444743694″ target=”_blank” ]One Wish from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available from good bookshops.