Product Description

Venetia Summers is 'buffered from single-motherhood' by boyfriend David, but when work takes him to the tropics, things begin to unravel. Phone lines crackle, e-mails languish unanswered, while children run amok, brother Desmond's outrageous wedding takes over her home and new neighbour, Hedley Sale, makes his dastardly presence felt. It's no surprise that Venetia ends up dumping David. But how is she to fend off the amorous Hedley, or break the news to the children?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1211216 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-18
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.76" h x 1.02" w x 5.20" l, .59 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Summertime, the sequel to Raffaella Barker's extremely popular Hens Dancing is a six-month snapshot of the life of Venetia Summers and her three children. Deserted by her "tower-of-strength" boyfriend David, Venetia spends the summer waiting for him to return, lonely and hurt that he seems to be taking his time.

Don't be fooled into thinking that she's just going to sit and mope. Although it would be pushing it to describe Summertime as action-packed--too much of the novel takes place on the school run or in the knot garden for that--Venetia's life races along and the months soon skip past. There are three eccentric children to ferry about, the ex-husband and his Internet pet cemetery to contend with and a new neighbour--the elusive Hedley Sale, complete with monobrow and dandruff.

Written in a clipped diary style, Summertime is packed with moments city dwellers only dream about. Afternoons in the garden of a beautiful Norfolk cottage, impulsive trips to hear nightingales, Easter egg hunts and moonlit nights stuffed with stars. Although they're a privileged lot--the children tell jokes about Beethoven--they're endearing and lovers of Katie Fforde, Mavis Cheek and Joanna Trollope should snap this up. Especially if they're partial to a cheeky parrot with a fruity wolf whistle and a mean sense of rhythm.--Jane Honey

From Publishers Weekly
In this latest addition to the "Brit-chick" genre, Barker sneaks another peek at the diary of divorced mother-of-three Venetia Summers. This sequel to last year's Hens Dancing follows her bucolic life in Norfolk, England, which "seems entirely made up of shit-shoveling episodes, be they after dogs, pigs, children, or hens." She's adjusting without her "lovely handsome tower-of-strength boyfriend, David," who's been called to work on a movie set in Bermuda, but desperately misses him and his help with 11-year-old Giles, nine-year-old Felix and toddler "The Beauty." Production delays keep David away longer than expected, and phone calls and e-mails are increasingly few and far between. But for better or worse, Venetia finds distraction in a wacky cast of characters, most notably her mother, whose idea of teatime is a pack of cigarettes and a glass of vodka, and Hedley Sale, her cantankerous new neighbor, who has a penchant for overimbibing and speaking Latin. Venetia also stumbles into a burgeoning fashion career, which consists of attaching the odd pipe cleaner or stalk of wheat to old cardigans and selling them in a posh London store, which will hopefully allow her to quit her tedious copywriting job. Frustrated by David's absence, Venetia flirts with the idea that Hedley may be The One, if only she can look past his repulsiveness to his ability to provide stability for her family. His attempts at seduction, like inviting Venetia to listen to the nightingales on the heath, are utterly British pastoral, and this breezy yet surprisingly tender read is peppered with Brit-speak (chod, scrumple, splodges) that any Anglophile will enjoy. The reader needn't be a parent to appreciate this sweetly funny ode to single motherhood.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This sequel to her delightful and wacky Hens Dancing finds Venetia Summers with a roiling mass of children and dogs at her feet and her tipsy mother announcing the upcoming marriage of Venetia's brother Desmond. David, the love of Venetia's life from the prior book, has gone off with a movie crew to the jungles of somewhere and communicates to her via e-mails with her children, strange parcels bearing live parrots, and infrequent phone calls. Venetia is certain that he has found another love in the jungle, has told him that their relationship is off, and is thoroughly depressed. But when she discovers a talent for designing unique clothing from odd bits of junk, things start looking up. Not only is she making money but the older (and wealthier) gentleman from down the road has asked her to marry him, and she has accepted. Her mother thinks that Venetia has lost her mind, and her children are furious. Pandemonium reigns until a peculiar event brings David out of the woodwork. Venetia Summers has been compared by earlier reviewers to Bridget Jones, but Barker's freshness and wit give her character a softer and more believable image. This truly charming novel is highly recommended for popular fiction collections. Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo,
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.