Why Mummy Swears

Why Mummy Drinks is the brilliant novel from Gill Sims, the author of the online sensation Peter and Jane. It is Mummy's 39th birthday. She is staring down the barrel of a future of people asking if she wants to come to their advanced yoga classes and polite book clubs where everyone claims to be tiddly after a glass of Pinot Grigio and says things like 'oooh gosh, are you having another glass?'

Mami ist gerade 39 geworden. Mit Schrecken blickt sie einer Zukunft entgegen, in der sie ständig gefragt wird, ob sie nicht auch mal zum Yoga für Fortgeschrittene kommen will, und wo auf Partys alle so tun, als hätten sie nach einem Glas Wein schon "ein Schwipschen". Aber Mami hat weder Lust auf einen praktischen Haarschnitt noch darauf, nur noch für ihre Kinder zu leben und auf dem Schulhof rumzustehen, während andere Mütter mit den jüngsten außerlehrplanmäßigen Aktivitäten ihres Nachwuchses angeben.

Pubertierende Kinder. Demente Schwiegermutter. Ehe in der Krise. Wenn's weiter nichts ist... Kate Reddy bewegt sich unaufhaltsam auf ihren 50. Geburtstag zu. Dass Frauen in diesem Alter nahezu unsichtbar werden, ist nicht ihre einzige Sorge. Sie plagt sich außerdem mit zwei Teenagern, die ihre Mutter zwar brauchen, aber nicht mit ihr sprechen wollen, mit kränkelnden Schwiegereltern und einer hilfsbedürftigen Mutter.

Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She's charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.

Fixie Farr can’t help herself. Straightening a crooked object, removing a barely there stain, helping out a friend...she just has to put things right. It’s how she got her nickname, after all. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, Fixie not only agrees, she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank her, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, scribbles her an IOU - but of course Fixie never intends to call in the favour.

You always remember your first love. Don't you? It began with four words. "I love your laugh." But that was 12 years ago. It really began the day Georgina was fired from The Worst Restaurant in Sheffield (TripAdvisor) and found The Worst Boyfriend in the World (Georgina's best friends) in bed with someone else. So when her new boss, Lucas McCarthy, turns out to be the boy who wrote those words to her all that time ago, it feels like the start of something. The only problem? He doesn't seem to remember Georgina at all.

The 10-day retreat at boutique health-and-wellness resort Tranquillum House promises healing and transformation. Nine stressed city dwellers are keen to drop their literal and mental baggage and absorb the blissful meditative ambiance while enjoying their hot stone massages. They are all on a path to a better way of living. Or at least a better waistline.... Watching over them is the resort's director, a woman on a mission to reinvigorate these bodies and minds. But to what lengths will she go to achieve her goal? These nine perfect strangers have no idea what's about to hit them.

Until 12 years ago, geneticist Don Tillman had never had a second date. Then he developed The Wife Project and met Rosie, 'the world's most incompatible woman'. Now, having survived 4,380 days of marriage, Don's life-contentment graph, recently at its highest point, is curving downwards. Rosie has just returned to work and is struggling with an obnoxious co-worker. Don, meanwhile, is in hot water after his latest lecture goes viral. But their real worry is their son, Hudson, who is having trouble at school: his teachers say he isn't fitting in with the other kids.

Erin is a documentary filmmaker on the brink of a professional breakthrough, Mark a handsome investment banker with a bright future. They seem to have it all - until Mark loses his job and cracks start to appear in their perfect life. But they’re determined to make it work. They book their dream honeymoon and trust that things will work out - after all, they have each other. Could the life of your dreams turn out to be a nightmare?  

There's no doubt that Tori is winning the game of life. She's inspired millions of women to stick two fingers up at convention with her best-selling memoir, and she has the perfect relationship to boot. But Tori Bailey has been living a lie. Everyone around her is getting married and having babies, but her long-term boyfriend won't even talk about getting engaged. And when her best friend Dee - her plus one, the only person who understands the madness - falls in love, suddenly Tori's in terrifying danger of being left behind.

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they're crazy, but it's the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy's at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven't met yet, they're about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rule book out the window.... 

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist. After all, life isn't a scene from the movies, is it? But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man whom she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Laurie thinks she'll never see the boy from the bus again. But at their Christmas party a year later, her best friend, Sarah, introduces her to the new love of her life. Who is, of course, the boy from the bus. 

On a hot July night in 1983, six school friends go camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and young Aurora Jackson is dazzled to be allowed to tag along. Thirty years later, a body is discovered. DCI Sheens is called to the scene, but he already knows what's waiting for him: Aurora Jackson, found at long last. But that's not all. The friends have all maintained their innocence, but the body is found in a hideaway only the six of them knew about. It seems the killer has always lurked very close to home.... 

Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life. But now everything she knows is changing - the library where she used to work has closed, the family fruit and veg shop has become a trendy bar, and her beloved husband, George, is gone. Kate has just moved and feels alone in a city that is too big for her. She's at the bottom rung of her career as a journalist on a local paper and is determined to make something of it. So when the local lido is threatened with closure, Kate knows this story could be her chance to shine.

We all want different things. Francie wants to be the perfect mother. Nell wants to escape the past. Collette wants to spend more time with her family. All Winnie wants is to have her baby back. When Nell suggests a night out in Brooklyn to her new mums club, the others jump at the chance. But the evening takes a tragic turn when single mother Winnie learns that her six-week-old son, Midas, has been kidnapped.