There's No Place Like Here

I have a problem. Besides being unable to only read one of a series, if I read something by an author that I enjoy, I then begin a horrible binge in which I read EVERYTHING that they have ever written. And if they have the audacity to publish after that, I usually can't even bring myself to look at it.

Cecelia Ahern is different because I got in on the ground floor, so to speak. I read "P.S. I Love You" when it was first published in the U.S. and was ridiculously impressed at how well it was written considering the age of the author. (She was only 21 at the time.) I also loved its not so tidy ending. It's tidy enough to leave me satisfied, but not so tidy that I wanted to hurl.

After that was "Rosie Dunn" which I noticed has also been publish under the titles "Love, Rosie" and "Where the Rainbow Ends". I have no explanation for that. Loved that one, too.

Taking a departure from reality, Ahern has written "If You Could See Me Now" and "There's No Place Like Here" which are still about women with issues, but in this case there is something "mystical" to help the women work through them. I think "There's No Place Like Here" was closer to the mark than "If You Could See Me Now".

"There's No Place Like Here" is the story of a woman who has been literally obsessed with finding things since a neighborhood girl disappeared 20 years ago. She starts off with the police, but can't stand to ever end a case, so she eventually opens up a missing persons agency. Then she goes missing from our world to find herself in a land where all missing things go. Every sock from the dryer, every piece of lost luggage, and many of the missing people she's been searching for her entire professional life. The reader is left to determine whether it really happens or not, but it's an enjoyable story to read and as per Ms. Ahern's usual, not too sickeningly tidy in it's wrap up.