After Molly's husband David dies in an accident Molly struggles to make ends meet running a smallholding in Herefordshire and looking after 3 children....and the bailiffs are circling! Then out of the blue she finds out that David's uncle died in London and she is the next of kin and set to inherit a house full of fabulous paintings and antiques.

She soon realises that there is someone living in the house and meets his son Felix - and for the first time since David's death she is feeling a strong attraction and he seems too good to be true, good looking, charming and attentive....is her luck changing at last!

I did enjoy the book - I loved the way her children kept finding her in compromising situations with different men - but although the story was written in the zany, mad way of her other books for me it didn't quite reach the standard that they did - I found myself skipping chunks - but it is still a good summer beach read

I have read all of Catherine's Alliott's book and I have to say that I was slightly disappointed with this one. I found it quite slow and it took a long time for me to get into it. Such a shame as I was looking forward to this one.

3.5☆ Comical in some places

This was my first book by Catherine Alliott.

Molly and David and their 3 children Lucy, Minna and Nico move to Hertfordshire in search of a new life. One to escape the hustle and bustle.
They move into a small farm in Hertfordshire.
However tragedy strikes!

David tragically dies leaving Molly and her 3 children alone. 
Molly was devastated and it was from that moment their dream would become her nightmare.

Raising 3 older children and looking after a small farm was never going to be easy.
But as the story progresses Molly is starting to become way over her head!
She comes up with ways to make money, like selling ladies underwear.

The bills start piling up and Molly is struggling to make ends meet.
Well that is until she discovers a very substantial inheritance that is left to her from a family member.

Her children certainly have opinions on how best she should spend the inheritance!

Finally Molly can turn her life around. But will she stay in rural Hertfordshire or move back to London?

Molly's children for me grated on me a little they were opinionated and often rude to their mother. Which shocked me.
Yes there was funny moments but I often wondered who was the parent and who was the child.

There were 3 potential love interests for Molly which made for an entertaining read.

I did enjoy this book and their was some laugh out loud moments. I love animals so the farm animals and the stories were comical.
But I felt the story was slow to get going and didn't really get a good flow to it. It seemed to drag a little bit.

I wasn't blown away by the characters. As I said before the children grated on me a little bit and Molly for me, her character had the potential to be really great..A strong independent Mother. But she just didn't get there.

Overall a good read. Would I recommend it... yes but I wasn't eager to read more.

I tried several times to get onto this book and really struggled. It had a slow start, I'm sure it would have got better if I persevered.

An engaging and light-hearted read of mistakes and misgivings. Catherine Alliott deals with comedy and tragedy in equal measure and keeps the reader in suspense right to the end. A delightful​ escapism.

Absolutely loved this book!!
Molly is a widow to 3 children living on a small holding/ farm in the countryside. Living here was her husbands wish not really hers but felt she had to go along with it due to one thing or another ( no spoilers!!). Not long after moving from London to the farm David dies and leaves Molly to pick up the pieces, which she tries to do but with three children, digs, cats, sheep, cows and horses, knickers, soap and bailiffs at the door is finding it harder than she thought until an unknown relative leaves her a little surprise.
This was a hilarious read, I often found myself laughing out loud with the situations Molly finds herself in the funniest being having to ride her horse for the vet! I enjoyed everything about this book and can't wait to read more by Catherine Alliott in the future.
I would like to thank netgalley and penguin random house uk for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

When Molly and David left London for the rural life it was supposed to be all their dreams come true.....but really it was more his dream and unfortunately he dies soon after they move. Left with a crumbling country house, a chaotic mini farm and three children Molly is determined to make it work. But it isn't working. So when a very large inheritance comes her way it may be the perfect way to go back to London and live the life she once dreamed of. But in her way are three men, one who may have ulterior motives, another from her past and a rather grumpy vet....

I enjoyed this far more than I expected to. It's a sweet and funny tale with a very likeable if somewhat daft narrator. The best way to describe it is as a 21st Century farce. There's much silliness and compromising positions, all totally far fetched but all very enjoyable.


Thank you Netgalley and publisher for this ARC for an honest review.

I wasn't blown away by this. I read another of Catherine Alliott's books - NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL - several years ago and remembered quite enjoying it so I thought this would be similar. Either I've already grown out of this sort of fiction, or this isn't on par with the author's earlier works.

The writing is good but I found it hard to connect with - or like - any of the characters. All Molly's problems seem to have been brought on herself so I found it really hard to have any sympathy for her.

This might be a good read for fans of the chick-lit genre, or fans of this author, but it's not a winner for me.

I was looking forward to reading About Last Night and it's had some great reviews but it's a book I just couldn't gel with.

I found it took ages to get going and felt that nothing really happened. I also didn't like the main character. There was the occasional funny one liner but over it want for me. This is only my opinion as plenty of others have enjoyed the book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK Michael Joseph and the author for the chance to review.

This book just wasn't for me, unfortunately. It's largely due to the main character, Molly.

At first I was sympathetic to Molly. Five years ago she moved from London to a farm in Herefordshire, for a more family-focused, quieter life. Now she's a widow, her children don't appear to be pulling their weight to help their mum, she owes everyone money and the neighbours aren't overly friendly. I haven't been in her situation, but my god I empathised with her.

But then we find out they largely moved to the farm because of Molly's bad decision making, and she doesn't seem to have made any good ones since then.

Then she gets some unexpected news. An old relative she has never met has died, and she's due to inherit a huge house in London. They can sell the farm and have a new family home! Everyone's a winner!

But it appears her uncle had a partner who is still living in the house. Molly feels her conscience pricking. The partner's son wants to take her out to dinner - and Molly laps up everything he says.

Ugh... I can't say much more due to spoilers, but Molly is foolish, short-sighted, too trusting on one hand, and doesn't listen to those people she can trust on the other. I wanted to shake her! She makes decisions with her gut, even though she's a grown up with a whole family to think about. She becomes a weak, unlikable character on the page right in front of you.

Whatever happens to her after that, happens because of the decent people around her, not her own actions.

I did want to like this book - I just couldn't like Molly.

About Last Night… is a light romantic yummy mummy book, grownup chicklit, with some entertaining passages. It would be an ideal holiday or aeroplane read.

The narrator, Molly, is a widow and – as shown in the extract – doing whatever is necessary to keep the family afloat. She lives in the country on a smallholding with two of her children, and she also sells underwear and soap by mail order. Life is tough, money a constant worry, and she has concerns about her children. But she has a good relationship with them (there is some shockingly realistic dialogue between parent and child…) and has friends and neighbours all around. Then the possibility of an inheritance pops up, and she considers going back to London – somewhere she only left because her now-dead husband wanted to move to the country. And it turns out there are some secrets in her past, and the truth (about her marriage and that move out of the city) is not simple.

The book is amusing, and an easy read – and Alliott tells a story well, as I think the extract above shows: she is good at convincing dialogue that moves the plot along, and tells you about the characters, and entertains. At times the book resembles (of all unlikely things) Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals - feisty widow, unruly children, no money, unsuitable adventures.

I wasn’t convinced by the sudden changes of tone, and the varying realism of the story – the exchanges with the hideous teenage children were some of the best bits of the book, and the author moved towards talking about betrayal, infidelity and bereavement, guilt and grief. But then she would be off on some ridiculous comedy moment, with the heroine behaving in a way that was not endearing, but just annoying: could she really be that stupid? And, I suppose it’s a convention that you can spot who she is going to end up with from his very first appearance, but it did take some of the tension out of the plot.

Also,  the plot is based on two premises:
1) Our heroine Molly is widowed, and is very poor because she had to pay death duties
2) This situation is going to be alleviated because a relation of her dead husband’s has died intestate, and Molly will inherit.
Now, both these premises are faulty – she wouldn’t have to pay inheritance tax on her spouse’s estate, and she cannot inherit from the dead uncle-by-marriage if not specifically named (her children can, but she cannot).

And so yet again I voice my dreary cri de coeur: did NOBODY reading this book at an early stage spot these very basic problems? This is a best-selling author, presumably a prized author. She is apparently married to a barrister. She is published by a serious major publishing house. She must have agents and editors and friends who read the manuscript. God knows, the plot isn’t trying to be realistic but still these are such basic problems… The geography didn’t seem to make much sense either – real-life experience says that it is not quite so easy and quick to whizz up to London from Herefordshire by train (and back again in a twinkle) as her characters seem to find it.

But I  shouldn’t be so picky – I think Alliott has a lot of fans who will love this book, and I cannot deny its entertainment value.

It had always been the long term plan, to eventually move out of London and live in the countryside. A few hens, a couple of goats, horses and at a push sheep. It sounded quite idyllic but what had always been a dream ended up being a nightmare. Not long after moving David tragically died leaving Molly to bring up their 3 children with the hardships of running a large small holding /small farm and constantly living on the edge of losing everything to the debt collectors. Life was tough. Well it was until Molly found out about the inheritance.
Oh poor Molly, living almost man free for what seems like a life time decides that the time has come to make a new start. After all this unexpected windfall could set them all up for a long, long time. I have to say that I wasn't keen on Molly's Spoiled children at first. They seemed very self centred, with everything being me. Me. ME!  Molly, most of the time, being chastised by her offspring for situations that looked like something they weren't.  Molly at times was more than gullible too but after saying that I cried with laughing.  I read a book to be entertained and well this really did all that.
I really enjoyed the comparisons between the hustle and bustle of the City and the real life and death situations of the countryside. Loved how the families characters changed depending where they were. I much preferred the country side of them.  There were also some real classic situations that had me laughing uncontrollably. I will never think of horse jumping again without having a vivid picture of this book in my mind. Just loved it. This is a story about regrets, trust and what is really important in life.
Molly's life was about to become complicated with three men, one from the past and two from the present but were any of them good enough to be her future?

Really enjoyed this book - couldn't put it down.

Molly moved from London to rural Herefordshire chasing the Good Life which was her dead husbands dream. 5 years later the demands of daily life living on a farm, tending to the animals whilst keeping 3 teenagers in town was hard work. Then a distant relative of her late husband also dies, leaving a London townhouse to her and she considers giving it all up and moving back, but all this isn't straight forward as there is a man still living in the house and his son tries to do her out of her inheritance, in the meantime she bumps into an old friend in London who she had an affair with which stirs up emotions and then her trusty vet friend Paddy comes to the rescue to help her claim the house back and in turn makes her realise he is the one she loves.

Its a funny, heartwarming compulsive read - will definitely recommend it to my friends.

While the start was very good.... after some time reading, I was like: "How come Molly can take care of the farm, of her 3 children and yet is like this"? She made some silly mistakes... for a mature woman. But despite that, I could recommend to those people that are after a fun and light-hearted read..

About Last Night is the third book I've read by Catherine Alliott. The other two – The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton* and Wish You Were Here** – I enjoyed and gave 4 stars to. I had high hopes for About Last Night, but it didn't quite live up to the others for me. It's entertaining and has some funny parts which made me laugh, making it a fun read - but it really hugely impress me, for a number of reasons.

The characters are quite fun, though some – including, at times, the main character Molly – were a bit irritating. I liked her to begin with and felt for her, but as the story continued I got a bit annoyed with her decisions and actions which were, at times, ridiculous. Quite a few of the characters in this novel felt overly simplified and not particularly convincing; I didn't feel like any of them were really people I'd either know from my own life, or could conceivably imagine running into on the street, at work or...well, anywhere really. I do feel that I have to either empathise / like the characters, or feel just feel strongly about them (even really hate them) in order to engage with the characters and therefore the story, and I didn't feel either of these things with this book's characters unfortunately.

I found a lot of this story humorous and entertaining, and bits really made me laugh. There are some comical scenes and some amusing thoughts and utterances by Molly. The way she interacts with her kids, and her kids interact with her, can be really funny; their despair over their mother when she's embarrassing or confusing them really did make me laugh. However, the story felt like it dragged on a bit at times, focussing too much on small details or dialogue, and so I found myself wanting to speed read through big chunks. I guessed quite a lot of what was going to happen beforehand, and so the fact that it then took ages to get to those parts frustrated me. The ending was positive and wrapped everything up nicely, though, which is always what you expect from a summery read like this.

Overall I feel that this is an enjoyable novel that will no doubt entertain and amuse readers; it did both for me but sadly the characters fell a little flat, and in my opinion the narrative could have been cut down by about a third. However I'd still recommend About Last Night if you're after a fun and light-hearted read.

Catherine Alliott at her best, all the characters are well written, lots of emotion in the book and some laugh out loud moments. Please, please ,the ending is left rather open, i do hope there is a sequel to follow. I don't know the first thing about farming but i now really feel for farmers, out in all weathers etc, such a hard life. The family at the centre is composed of a guilt ridden mum and 3 wilful selfish children who do their best to make her feel like a femme fatale, despite her falling over backwards to make their dead father's dreams come true .A wonderful book, hard to put down.

A good mix of believable characters. A 'couldn't put it down book '. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK and the author Catherine for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book made me laugh out loud!!!! It's really funny in parts and it's really well written!!Comedy writing at its best - big thumbs up from me!

A little bug bear for me was the title of the book.... it suggests that the whole storyline is centered round this 'one big night' when actually this story is about a whole lot more!!!!

A chick lit type of book. Molly has been widowed for 5 years and is struggling to run the farm when she discovers her husband's uncle has died and she might be having a change of fortunes.

I really enjoyed this book, it was funny, light, but still covered strong issues.
The characters were believable and true to life.