The Memory Box

312 pages. ex-libraryCan you ever really forget your first love? Meltdowns are a funny old thing. You can be as together as you like, and then one day - BOOM - something throws you into a messy tailspin and you freefall into full panic mode. For some people it can be triggered by something as simple as turning thirty. For others ? me for example ? a meltdown is a little more complicated. And the trigger is somethi ng rather more serious than a birthday. Pandora Schuster is about to turn thirty but that?s the least of her worries. She?s just been tested for a hereditar y family illness and, expecting the worst, she?s desperate for her ex-boyfrien d and father of nine-year-old Iris to be a part of her daughter?s life. But th ere are two major problems: Olivier Huppert lives in Paris and he has no idea th at Iris even exists. Pandora secretly tries to find Olivier during her serendipi tous thirtieth birthday weekend to Paris, but the trip doesn?t exactly go to p lan. Back in Dublin, as the agonising weeks until her test results crawl by, Pan dora manages to find some distraction with her kind and sensible boyfriend, Decl an, and thanks to the increasing bond with her fellow Shoestring Club members as they time-share a fabulous new designer dress. But matters of the heart are not easily forgotten and Pandora is forced to make some serious decisions. She is d etermined for Iris to know who her father is and creates a memory box filled wit h photos, letters and mementoes. Pandora?s box conjures up magical memories of the time she spent with Olivier in Paris until the past and the present start t o collide and she finds herself having to choose between her head and her heart.…