Liz Ryan 
Taste of Freedom 

When Keeley and Mary, best friends from Dublin, go off to pick grapes in France in 1977, both their lives change profoundly. Provence is utterly different from boring, repressive Ireland. Mary, who is taking a break before she settles down to marriage with her uninspiring but steady boyfriend Cathal, is the one who manages to become pregnant, and has to go home. Keeley, who only went along to keep Mary company, is the one who stays in France, making a new life for herself with a charming French hairdresser. As the years pass, they both dream of what might have been — until, in a very different Ireland, Mary gets her second chance at freedom.’Liz Ryan understands not only a woman’s heart but a woman’s mind’ Terry Keane Sunday Times