WATERMELON

Claire Webster feels as if she has swallowed a watermelon, and her pregnant belly, in a green jumper, makes her look like one. But the seed in her is a baby girl--good news, except that her husband has just left her. So she clutches newborn Kate and flees from London to Dublin into Mum's loving arms. A new love affair with a man five years her junior looks promising until James tries to worm his way back into her life. Gerri Halligan's light brogue roots the listener in the soil of the Emerald Isle. Alternately funny and sad, her candid voice issues from the innermost Claire, revealing all the emotions in Keyes's first-person tale of the making of an independent woman. E.V. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]