She and her books have won numerous awards, including the Irish Book Award for Popular Fiction for The Year I Met You. Tell me about your new novel, In a Thousand Different Ways. What was the inspiration and how did it evolve?

In a Thousand Different Ways – HarperCollins Publishers UK

SOFTCOVER. Condition: GOOD FINE. IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS AHERN, CECELIA HARPER COLLINS ESPAÑOL 9780008194987. Sniffy. My 40-year-old pillow case that is now a rag and still comes everywhere with me. What is the most beautiful book that you own? Oh, how excited I was to read the latest book by Cecelia Ahren! "A mainstream book about people like me! Wow." I marvelled. This was most interesting, following Alice throughout her life, her struggles with her difficult mum and younger brother, but loved and understood by her older brother. Her best friend in high school becomes a major sports star in the Premier League, she helps him get there. She discovers her husband on the tube, he has no colours, which she has never experienced. Alice which is the main character She can see your feelings with colours so like blue is for feeling sad .I was very Captivated by Alice as a character herself self and really felt Sadness for her, As I can imagine it's pretty overwhelming Not just feeling your own emotions but everybody else is around you. But it also comes from places so maybe that she can get an image image in her head and she can't get that out and it can be massive overload of emotions.I was fortunate to get an advance copy of this book via NetGalley (I chose it because of the cover) and I am glad that I did because it did not disappoint in subject or characters.

In a Thousand Different Ways by Cecelia Ahern | Goodreads In a Thousand Different Ways by Cecelia Ahern | Goodreads

Alice has the skill to visualise in colours and fights through life coming from a suboptimal family. How can one master life, if distraction is a steady consonant in life? How can one move in a society without fear, if one can see and feel the darkest intentions of some people for instance at a children´s playground? And what happens, if someone with synesthesia comes across someone who reflects no color whatsoever? Alice Kelly has a gift (or curse, depending on your perspective). She sees an aura around people, sensing their emotions and moods, owing to a condition called synaesthesia. She grows up in an unhappy home with a bipolar mother who neglects Alice and her brothers. This is the story of Alice’s life and ultimately, it’s a rather odd, humdrum and depressing one. I found all of the characters well rounded. We get to know them well through their impact on Alice. Her meeting with Naomi is a turning point, where she learns that her life can be different. Her relationship with Andy, after an idyllic start, becomes troubled at times, but they learn to deal with each other's idiosyncrasies. Her love of being out in nature and her growing understanding of plants through seeing their moods and colours was fascinating and and, for her, life-changing. The Story over all I felt had quite a bit of magical realism in bit of magical realism in it which really drawn me into the story itself, If your a fan of T.J klune then I think you will live this . This is a story of a woman finding herself and how to deal with other people's anger, darkness. A disabled mother, a brother recently out of jail and her brother and family living in Doha.

Featured Reviews

We see glimpses of her past, future and present as she goes to a special school, her life after that as she starts to try and discover who she is and meeting people who accept her. Some who even think she is special in ways she doesn't even known. If you don’t feel your own pain, you cannot recognise it in others. Our own suffering can cultivate the ability to help others. I’m not interested in writing the same novel twice. I’m drawn to writing about challenging, transitional moments in people’s lives, and that theme never changes, but how I go about telling the story changes so very much I’m sure it sends my publishers’ heads in a spin. I’m often too quirky to be commercial and too commercial to be literary and while I’m comfortable with not fitting in, it’s never easy when it comes to knowing where to put me on a shelf. What projects are you working on? It was certainly overwhelming. The workload was immense from the beginning which was excellent training. However, being from Ireland and being surrounded by grounded Irish people, I knew, because I was told, that what was happening to me was not the norm. I knew that it was not going to be the case for every single book for the rest of my life and so I was embracing the moment and enjoying it as much as I possibly could. What makes your work so attractive to film-makers? This was a lovely book. Alice sees colours in people from when she was 8, her mum and brothers sometimes struggle to understand her, as does Alice herself. In seeing colours in people, she knows their thoughts and emotions, which is often not pleasant, to the point where Alice wears sunglasses and gloves and a mask to protect herself from the bombardment she gets from them.