Making It Up As I Go Along — Tara Heavey

Liz Clancy blames her absent father for everything that has gone wrong in her life. There's her job in a bookshop from which she keeps getting fired because she's rude to the customers; then there's her disastrous penchant for older men, not least the magnetic charms of her boss. Even her olive-dark skin and curly black hair that frizzes in the rain ...

Then the chance discovery of a photo of her dad stops her in her tracks. He looks exactly like her, and she begins to wonder if he is more than just the selfish waster her mother says he was. And when she traces his colourful family to the heart of Dublin's inner city, she is regaled with stories of his passion for music, and of his exotic Spanish ancestry.

Liz is knocked for six. Could this explain why she is so shamefully drawn to Julio Iglesias, the Gypsy Kings, to flamenco, paella and all things Spanish? And, more importantly, if he isn't the man she thought he was - who is she? With the help of her fortune-telling grandmother, and a handsome, young man, Liz sets off in search of the missing part of herself and a future full of surprises ...