SALE ON NOW! PROMOTIONS
Diana Appleyard is a writer, broadcaster and freelance journalist for a number of national newspapers and magazines. She worked for the BBC as an Education Correspondent, before deciding to give up her full-time job to work from home, a decision which formed the basis for her first novel, Homing Instinct. She lives with her husband Ross and their two young daughters in an Oxfordshire farmhouse. Homing Instinct, A Class Apart, Out of Love and her most recent novel, Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover are all published by Black Swan.
This is a novel that can be read on several levels: as an entertaining domestic drama, a battle of wills or the sad disintegration of a once-happy family. Tess and Mark James and their three children lead a bickering life on the edge of total chaos. Mark's demanding City job (which pays the bills, but only just) means long hours and frequent long absences from home. Tess, apart from keeping the family fed and (mostly) in clean shirts, has a part-time job in an art gallery which she enjoys and which gives her intellectual stimulation. As the children grow - Jake and Ollie into their difficult adolescence, adorable Hattie into the pre-teens - Tess dreams of returning to university, working for her MA and finding a really important job in the art world. The dream gradually becomes a compulsion. It only means - she thinks - the rest of the family doing their share of the chores and taking some of the responsibility off her shoulders. The family don't see it like that; Mum is their rock and, frankly, their servant, and always should be. A family holiday in Cornwall brings the situation to a climax. Tess can no longer be just Mum - she must be herself. Diana Appleyard writes with wit; much of the tale is amusing but there is a sobering depth to her observations and she raises many pertinent questions. Why must it always be women who make the choices, the sacrifices? Why can't everyone have everything they want? Why do choices seem to get harder in the 21st century? Is discontent caused by society's expectations, or is it simply that we are all more self-absorbed, more demanding, less willing to yield gracefully? Do we give our children too much rope, and too many expensive toys and clothes too early 'because everyone else has one'? Are children too dominated by peer pressure and bullying? And if so whose fault is it? They're important issues, and Appleyard discusses them with insight and sympathy. (Kirkus UK)
