Popular Fiction: The last time we met Emma Hamilton, in Sinéad Moriarty's debut novel, The Baby Trail, she was a happy-go-lucky 30-something who had just done what every chick-lit heroine dreams of: met the man of her dreams. That done, the next logical step was to get down to the business of baby-making - except that the babies were just not forthcoming.
The tale of Emma's ever more desperate efforts to conceive obviously chimed with its target audience of readers who were perhaps realising that finding the man of your dreams is just the start of life's challenges. Because of its humorous and frank treatment of a taboo subject, The Baby Trail rapidly became a bestseller.
On to a winning formula, Moriarty naturally left a space wide open for a sequel, with Emma and James ultimately giving up on IVF and starting to consider the possibility of adoption. And so we now have part two, A Perfect Match, which follows the pair as they go through the red-tape-filled process of trying to find their own little Yuri or Lara.
While the adoption process is no doubt gruelling, Moriarty doesn't quite manage to wrest as much of a rollercoaster-style story out of it as she did in The Baby Trail, and significant portions of the book are given over to romantic comedy subplots involving friends and family. Unfortunately, Emma isn't a charismatic enough narrator to have us laughing out loud as she recounts these, but, in her favour, she's a thoroughly likeable, warm heroine.
A beach read just as beach weather disappears, this isn't the most sparklingly witty of the chick-lit genre, but its candid-yet-feelgood tone will no doubt win over its fair share of readers eager to find out what happened to our hapless heroine and her heroically patient partner in their quest for parenthood.
Roberta Gray is a freelance journalist
A Perfect Match By Sinéad Moriarty Penguin Ireland, 320pp. £6.99