The Wives of Bath

Holden, Wendy

ISBN 10: 075530067X ISBN 13: 9780755300679

Publisher: Headline Hardbacks, 2005

Synopsis

First-time parents and forbidden love...Two wildly different couples meet in an antenatal class and loathe each other on sight. Flashy Hugo and Amanda plan to five-star birthing experience with private hospitals and maternity nurses. Right-on Alice and Jake want a home delivery with whale music and towelling nappies. But baby Theo has barely arrived before Hugo and Amanda hit problems. In contrast to blissed-out-with-fatherhood Jake, Hugo fails miserably to bond with his son. Amanda, meanwhile, decides motherhood is boring. She's ticked the box and now wants her life and magazine career back. When Amanda leaves him in the lurch, horrified Hugo is left literally holding the baby with no idea even how to change a nappy. Rescue comes in the unexpected shape of politically correct, perfect-mum Alice. Despite initial mutual dislike and misunderstanding, she and Hugo fall madly in love. But as married parents they have everything to lose. Especially once Amanda and Jake discover the affair...

About this title

About the Author

Wendy Holden was a journalist for fourteen years before becoming a full-time writer. She is married with two children and lives in London and Derbyshire.

From Publishers Weekly

Holden affectionately skewers marriage and parenthood in her latest charming farce (after Azur Like It) about two expectant couples who, having fled bustling cities for a slower pace of life, find themselves in the same prenatal class in the small city of Bath, England. Alice, a lawyer, got pregnant after a "one-teatime stand" and impulsively married environmentally conscious Jake, who soon becomes an eco-fascist under the pressures of fatherhood—refusing to bathe, giving away Alice's belongings and insisting they only feed their child stewed organic vegetables. Notorious celebrity journalist Amanda loses her job and decides that a baby will be her latest trendy accessory. But then she lands a new position and her hunky husband, Hugo, a real estate agent, finds himself plunged into fatherhood, left as sole caregiver for a squirming, baffling baby. He turns to down-to-earth Alice for help, and soon the two develop something more than friendship. With crisp, witty dialogue and none of the clunky exposition that hobbles so much chick lit, Holden's book soars above other volumes in the genre and grips the reader with an escalating succession of humorous, diaper-laden escapades.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Headline Hardbacks
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 075530067X
• ISBN 13: 9780755300679
• Binding: Unknown Binding
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416