Time In A Bottle - Reviews

Evening Herald, Thursday 29th April, 2004

Bottled charm

Having a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness is every mother's worst nightmare – but Jenny Dempsey is no ordinary mother.
For starters, she's a single mum, estranged from her parents and her former fiance, Dave, while also carrying a dark, guilty secret.
Five years previously, she was a hard-nosed, ambitious newshound, chasing scoops for her newspaper and engaged to the gorgeous Dave. She had a wonderful life in front of her. Then, one night of madness threw her life into reverse gear.
When Time in a Bottle opens, Jenny's life largely revolves around her four-year-old son, Charlie. She hasn't completely given up on journalism, though, and writes a weekly health column for the newspaper where she used to be a reporter.
While motherhood has softened her, forcing her to shift priorities, she still clings to old resentments and bitter memories, remaining locked in a self-made prison of anger, guilt and self-reproach.
The story begins when Charlie is about to start school and Jenny is trying to loosen the umbilical cord and recreate a social life for herself. Her plans go awry when Charlie is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness that also threatens to re-awaken his mother's painful past.

Tantalising

Deegan whets the readers' interest by drip-feeding a tantalising story-line at a pace calculated to enthral. Death, disease and endless weeks in hospital wards follow, along with good and bad news, and plenty of false dawns.
And then there is the handsome, widowed doctor – not to mention the old flame who returns from the US. In between the concerns of motherhood come the episodes of passion as well as the joys of friendship and the healing of broken relationships.
The story is never predictable because Deegan lays plenty of false trails and creates so many options for her heroine that the reader has to keep reading.
It is a story-line that may, at first, appear implausible because of its over-dependence on a number of coincidences, but the author's skill as a writer manages to pull it off.
Perhaps, inevitably in such a complicated, busy story, some characters get short-changed. One of these is Jenny's father who is largely ignored for most of the book and then hastily reinserted, when he becomes useful as the story reaches its denouement.
Aside from the riveting plot, Time in a Bottle is a pacey yet simple read, written entirely in the present tense with long tracts of sparkling dialogue. Deegan shows she has a good eye for detail but an even better ear for genuine, natural flowing dialogue. You can see her pictures and hear her conversations.
Time in a Bottle is a moving book that depicts distressing personal loss to cancer and draws on deeply felt emotions. It is also a book that could only have been written by a woman who loves children and their ways because the dialogue so authentically captures the child's voice and personality.
In Time in a Bottle, Denise Deegan entwines the threads of mystery, plot and character into a compelling yarn that charms and chills – but always captivates.

Evening Herald, 10th May, 2004

Relax with this latest gripping novel from Denise Deegan, whose first book Turning Turtle, won widespread acclaim. Her new novel, Time in a Bottle, is published today. Jennifer has given up her high-powered career to lead a quiet life with her four-year-old son Charlie.
But her world is shattered when Charlie is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.
A poignant read, available from bookshops nationwide, at 9.99.

Irish Independent, Saturday, 15th May, 2004

Denise Deegan burst on to the scene just over a year ago, introducing her effervescent style in Turning Turtle, which became an instant bestseller. She is back again with a thoughtful page-turner.
Jennifer Dempsey is a freelance journalist writing a weekly health column for a national newspaper. For the past five years, since she broke up with fiance Dave due to a one-night fling with Dr Simon Grace, a paediatric oncologist, there has been only one man in her life – her son, Charlie.
As he approaches his fifth birthday and starts school, Jennifer experiences the normal pangs of separation, befriends Mary – the mother of one of Charlie's school mates – and begins to have a life again, taking up yoga and having a few girls' nights out.
However, something is wrong with little Charlie and Jennifer is suddenly living every parent's nightmare: her son's hospitalisation with leukaemia and the heartache, hope and despair of their day-to-day existence in hospital and that of other children and parents.
The situation is further complicated by a series of coincidences. Simon, now a widower, is not only Charlie's doctor but also the father of Jennifer's babysitter, Debra, who is still grieving for her mother.
As the process of looking for a bone marrow donor begins, Jennifer is forced to come out of the cocoon she has been sharing with Charlie for five years. She must find out who Charlie's father is: ex-fiance Dave or Simon?
Charlie's illness brings out the best in family and friends, even Jack, the hard-nosed editor of the newspaper. As they rally round, Jennifer is reconciled with her parents, estranged from her since Charlie's birth. Debra finds a way to deal with her mother's death and ultimately, the loose ends left hanging five years before are tied up, leading Jennifer to find happiness again.
Deegan fizzes through the pages, bringing out the positive in tragic events and, once again, manages to inject humour and pace, as well as empathy, into a harrowing topic. No doubt, Time in a Bottle will be on the bestsellers' shelf soon.

Irish Times, Saturday, May 22nd 2004

A Moving Tale

Jenny Dempsey lives by the sea in Dublin with her little boy, Charlie, and their dog, Sausage. She is content to have turned her back on a hectic career in journalism and more than happy to be living the quiet life of a freelancer. One day, concerned about his pale face and black circles under his eyes, she takes her son to the doctor for a check-up. Charlie has leukaemia. Their quiet life is turned upside down.
This book tackles a huge subject which could make for a clunky and cloying read. Thankfully Deegan's clipped, staccato style keeps things moving along as she outlines the heart-wrenching struggle to find a bone marrow donor for Charlie, and Jenny's own struggle to face difficult issues: her strained relationship with her politician mother, her broken engagement with Dave and her relationship with Charlie's oncologist, Dr Simon Grace.
The romantic sub-plots including the question of who Charlie's father is and which of the candidates Jenny has the strongest feelings for, are diverting, but the book is most successful in dealing with Charlie's harrowing illness.
Deegan has a great eye for detail. Her sparse descriptions – whether she is writing about the mother's wafer-thin mattress beside her son's bed or the hospital kitchen where she makes his snacks – brings the hospital environment to life. The blurb says Deegan's daughter became ill while during the writing of the book and there is authenticity to her description of a mother's pain when faced with caring for a seriously ill child. The ending is neat, perhaps too neat, but Time in a Bottle is still a deeply moving second novel.

Ireland On Sunday, June 6th 2004

Good diagnosis for a touching tale

**** It would come as a devastating blow to any parent if their four-year old was struck by a life-threatening illness.
And for Jenny, a single mother still getting her bearings in the wake of the death of her grandmother – the woman who reared her when her own mother put her career ahead of her daughter – it spells disaster.
Complicating matters is the re-emergence in her life of the man who may be the father of her young son who is also the consultant treating his cancer.
With a certain amount of personal insight into caring for a sick child (Ms Deegan has spoken in the past about her family's disturbing brush with serious illness) the author builds a credible picture of the anxiety, fear and weariness that accompanies such trauma.
You might argue that Jenny and Charlie's passage through the contemporary Irish health system bears very little resemblance to real life. What health insurance plan is Jenny on? And just how many freelance journalists would be able to afford to drop their work commitments?
But, in fairness, the depth of feeling the author brings to her writing more than makes up for such quibbles.
Once again, Denise Deegan has produced a winner.

TATLER, May 2004

Denise Deegan is a recent entrant to the new wave of Irish popular fiction and a sharper, darker writer than many of her competitors. In Time in a Bottle, her second book, she tells the story of a single mother, Jennifer, whose son, Charlie's serious illness forces her to confront problems she's ignored for years, most importantly the secret of who Charlie's father is. The plot stretches the imagination somewhat at the start where Jennifer's solitary state is too hastily explained away (surely she has some friends? Surely even if she is on bad terms with her mother there must be some contact?) but the intriguing secret at the heart of the book is somehow credible, giving way to the equally intriguing question of which love interest Jennifer will hang on to, if any. There is believable dialogue and emotional depth here, and there is something very satisfying in finding out at the end exactly what happens next.

IMAGE, May 2004

Jennifer has never regretted turning her back on the high life and moving to a quiet seaside town with her son Charlie. But, when Charlie becomes dangerously ill, Jennifer is forced to face the past from which she ran away. Denise Deegan's Time in a Bottle is a moving story of a mother's love and a woman's personal development.

Books Ireland, Summer 2004

Second outing in fiction that sounds heavy but is lighthearted, portraying a single parent and her son Charlie, whose life is threatened by disease. This makes Jennifer delve into the past she wants to forget. As Charlie struggles for life, she relives the ordeal of a difficult relationship with her mother, the break-up with Dave and soon will have to face the father of her son with earth-shattering news.