Published by HQ
Publication date: 12th November 2020
Genre: womens fiction
My thanks to the publisher for approving my request to read this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Book Description:
Aisha Moore is eight months pregnant. She’s thrilled, and a little scared. Not least because her husband Jason hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the fact.
Lucy is having her first child too. She has finally got her wish – although the circumstances aren’t quite what she had hoped. Oscar will be a great dad though, won’t he?
When the two women join the same baby group, they quickly become friends and before long they’re confiding in each other.
Only there’s one thing Lucy hasn’t told Aisha. And while a baby may turn your life upside-down, a secret this big will change everything.
My Thoughts:
I think anyone who has attended antenatal classes or baby & toddler groups will be able to relate to this book. It certainly brought back memories of the diverse variety of parents-to-be in the classes I attended back in the day and the sense of everyone assessing/judging each others circumstances and relationships was portrayed very well by the author.
The story is mainly told from mum to be Aisha's perspective and she relates her worries about just about everything from how good a mum she will be to how invested her husband is in the antenatal group classes. She seems to click straightaway with one of the other mums, Lucy but the other woman seems to run hot and cold with Aisha, one minute she's wanting to be best mates then others she's hard to get in touch with. What is Lucy hiding? Or are Aisha's hormones just making her over sensitive? As a whole the group gels really well and there are some great comedy moments which I'm sure are very relatable to anyone who has experienced these type of groups.
One by one the women have their babies and distance creeps in as the parents' lives get taken over with colic, nappies and breastfeeding dramas. But there's something else, something Aisha can't pin down which is making her feel like something isn't quite right. I really enjoyed this book because the characters are so real and credible. The later chapters were rather daunting and my heart went out to Aisha whilst I wanted to throttle both Lucy and Jason for their part in Aisha's traumas. On the other side of the story, I hadn't expected to like Oscar as much as I did by the end of the book. The other peripheral characters in the group add depth to the story and make it an enjoyable novel despite the main plotline not being too pleasant for Aisha.
This would make a great book club read as there are plenty of contentious issues and moral dilemmas to discuss.
About the Author:
Rosie Nixon is an author, mother of two and Editor-in-Chief of HELLO! magazine where she has worked for over a decade and has a love of all things celebrity, royal and fashion-related. Rosie previously held senior positions at glossy women's magazines including Grazia, Glamour and Red. In her career she has been lucky enough to attend a multitude of glamorous award ceremonies, premieres, celebrity weddings and showbiz events all around the world. Ever discreet and protective of the stars she has worked with, Rosie's experience has undoubtedly enabled her to write her debut novel The Stylist (published February 2016) and the sequel The Stylist Takes Manhattan (published in 2017).
Follow Rosie on Twitter @Rosie_Nixon
No comments:
Post a Comment