Great Expectations

'Expectation' by Anna Hope (Transworld, 2019)

A few years ago, I read Anna Hope's 'Wake', a thoughtful novel set in the aftermath of the First World War and structured around the return of the Unknown Warrior.  This was followed by 'The Ballroom', also set in the early 20th century.  In the forthcoming 'Expectation', Hope arrives in the 21st century with a story of three modern women and the challenges faced when dreams don't become reality.

London, 2004: Hannah, Cate and Lissa are best friends, housemates with their whole lives ahead of them and high hopes for successful careers, fulfilling relationships and ongoing friendship.  But ten years on, they are not where they expected to be.  Despite their best efforts, things have not gone to plan - in work, in marriage or in motherhood.  As the gap between their twenty-something aspirations and the thirty-something reality dawns, they struggle to reconcile the two.  Faced with an overwhelming desire to salvage something of their youthful hopes and dreams, each acts desperately in a last ditch attempt to find the satisfaction they crave.  As obsession, lust and regret take hold, can their friendship survive its greatest test?

Mama, We're All Sweary Now

'Why Mummy Swears' by Gill Sims (HarperCollins, 2019)

I haven't read 'Why Mummy Drinks', but I did recently finish 'Why Mummy Swears', Gill Sims' potty-mouthed sequel, continuing Ellen's story of contemporary motherhood and family life.

'Why Mummy Swears' follows mother-of-two Ellen through another 12 months of ups, downs, wobbles and squabbles.  While her son Peter ignores her in favour of his tablet, her daughter Jane only speaks to her to demand an Instagram account.  Outside the house, Ellen's been suckered into chairing their school's PTA (because no one else will) and her father's Big News has got her pretentious sister Jessica tied up in knots. On top of this, her well of ideas has dried up and it's becoming clear that working from home on a new money-making scheme is not going to pan out.  Fortunately, Ellen's dream job comes up just in time.  But can she rely on her husband Simon to step up and do his fair share of the parenting so she can go back to work full-time?

Mr Bright Side

'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography' by Eric Idle (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2018)

After the intensity of 'The Five', I needed something more frivolous and optimistic.  As it turns out, you can't really get more optimistic than Monty Python's Eric Idle.

'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' is a scamper through the highs and lows (but mostly the highs) of the life of Eric Idle. After a childhood marred by the early loss of his father and an unpleasant spell at boarding school, Idle gained a place at Cambridge University in the 1960s, that now-legendary cradle of intellectuals and alternative comedy.  In this Big Bang of confidence and creative energy, many significant cultural figures mixed, with groups forming, splitting and reforming, until the infamous Pythons gravitated together and stuck.  Over the next 50 years, due to hard work and a positive attitude, Idle's career as a performer and writer thrived.  As well as professional success in film, theatre and television, he became friends with many like-minded people (who also happen to be celebrities), including George Harrison and Robin Williams.  'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' is a life story and a love story, about friendship as well as fame, humanity as well as humour.  There is laughter, there are tears, but, somehow, there is always a bright side.