Hens Dancing

Hens Dancing

by Raffaella Barker
Hens Dancing

Hens Dancing

by Raffaella Barker

eBook

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Overview

A truly funny, intelligently told story that takes you deep into someone else's life

'Should be read for Barker's glittering prose ... Venetia is a disarmingly wry and engaging narrator with a keen eye for nature and the follies of urban chic' Financial Times

'A positive hymn to provincial living, it is an entertaining celebration of family life with all its highs, lows and eccentricities' The Times

When Venetia Summers's husband runs off with his masseuse, the bohemian idyll she has strived to create for her young family suddenly loses some of its rosy hue. From her tumble-down cottage in Norfolk she struggles to keep up with the chaos caused by her two boys, her splendid baby daughter and the hordes of animals, relatives and would-be artists that live in her home.

From juggling errant cockerels, jam-making frenzies and Warhammers, to unexpected romance, Bloody Mary's and forays into fashion design, Hens Dancing is like a rural Bridget Jones's Diary as it charts a year of Venetia's madcap household.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781408851616
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 12/25/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 288
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Raffaella Barker, daughter of the poet George Barker, was born and brought up in the Norfolk countryside. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels: Come and Tell Me Some Lies, The Hook, Hens Dancing, Summertime, Green Grass, A Perfect Life and Poppyland. She has also written a novel for young adults, Phosphorescence. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph, and teaches on the Literature and Creative Writing BA at the University of East Anglia and the Guardian UEA Novel Writing Masterclass. Raffaella Barker lives by the sea in north Norfolk.

www.raffaellabarker.co.uk

@raffaellabarker

Read an Excerpt

Hilarity and tenderness abound in this novel narrated in pages torn from the diary of one Venetia Summers, a thirty-something divorced mother of three who resides in rural England and is owner of, among other things, controlling shares in her ex-husband’s pet mortuary and numerous pairs of oddly colored Wellingtons.

While Venetia’s life may not be as glamorous as the one she left behind in the city ten years ago, it certainly isn’t dull. She has two exuberant young boys and one splendid baby girl–known simply as The Beauty–to feed and outfit and keep happy. Other responsibilities include upkeep of a lovely but ramshackle old house, complete with a garden growing with wild abandon, and the care of a variety of bloomered bantam hens. Then there’s her mother, sometimes helpful and supportive but more often busy tossing back vodka and smoking cigarettes; a rather cute but presumptuous bathroom contractor and his oversexed Labrador; and various other friends, relations and country characters who dart in and out of Venetia’s life, wreaking havoc along the way.

Fortunately for her, Venetia is the sort who can find beauty in the surrounding mayhem, and fortunately for us, she records it all with wry wit and great verve, sharing the joys and sometimes dubious pleasures of raising a family in the English countryside.

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