She writes of personal and political events; of the many senior political figures to whom she was close, especially Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern; of her two beloved Brians, both of whom died before their time; of her successes and disappointments. She does all this with honesty, energy and an absence of self-pity or selfjustification. Mary O’Rourke has been one of the most successful and influential women in Irish public life in a generation. The book is like the woman herself: open, warm and candid.