The opening line, ‘The flames take the vulva pinata immediately’, had me hooked from the outset. Set over a single day in a beautiful glass house in the English countryside, on one of the hottest days of the year, Nicki is celebrating her babyshower with her closest girlfriends until a fire breaks out, destroying 35 acres of land. We spend the rest of the novel being invited into the minds of each character as the events leading up to the fire unfold.

Holly Bourne’s novel is fast-paced, witty and completely compelling with multiple points of view, so each character has a clearly defined voice. Each character does lean into certain cliches but I think this works. Each character serves to portray a ‘type’ that each reader will be able to relate to in some way. I think the triumph in this novel is its relatability and the comfort it brings to know that although these changes are scary, they’re normal and ultimately inevitable. Bourne successfully presents both the dark and light sides of female friendship in her novel and explores how friendship inevitable changes in the face of motherhood, marriage and careers. Through all of the chaos and drama that unfolds, Bourne demonstrates that although girl friendships get a bad wrap, true female friendship is possibly the greatest gift of all.

Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university. Now in their thirties, life is pulling them in different directions - but when Charlotte organises the baby shower of hell for pregnant Nicki, the girls are reunited.

This was a heavy one and I expect nothing less from Holly Bourne. She writes life so well and encapsulates exactly how it feels. I myself have never been pregnant or a mother or anything of the kind but yet I still felt all that these women were going through and understood it so well as though I'd experienced it firsthand. Holly Bourne has a special knack for doing that and that is why I continue to read her books, YA or Adult.

I rated this 4 stars!

The baby shower didn’t go up in smoke, but started an inferno.

Mixing gripping narration with social media snippets and interview transcripts, it has all the makings of a thrilling crime story with the emotional devastation of a drama. Holly's recent move into adult fiction has been an absolute slam-dunk in my opinion, with her latest work offering a darkly relatable story that looks under the pristine Instagram representations of womanhood and motherhood to explore the devastating, depressing and difficult inner lives of modern women.

Each character was so perfectly imperfect Steffi making waves in publishing, Lauren adjusting to motherhood and Charlotte obsessively organising the perfect baby shower for Nicki .. and of course Nicki- getting ready for the perfect baby shower. And then Phoebe who they haven’t spoken to in years since the incident. They’re complicated, sometimes downright malicious and unlikeable. but such strong characters who I couldn't help but see parts of myself in.

It had the most perfectly written fear and tension in the most subtle ways, the whole thing mostly taking place in one quiet afternoon with a suffocating heat and slowly ramping up the intensity. Underneath the absolutely brilliant crime plot was a searing statement about womanhood and motherhood, the hatred of mothers and child-free women alike, and a compelling look at how friendships change, evolve and grow over the years. Feminist fiction at it's finest, with a killer crime twist.

These books are my therapy — they’re so healing, validating, and simply stunning pieces of writing.

So Thrilled For You is the perfect title for this novel that explores the many facets and expectations of motherhood. Author Holly Bourne – recently a mother herself as she mentions in the acknowledgments – gives us a group of four friends and through them, the different layers and experiences of motherhood.

Charlotte, Nicki, Steffi and Lauren meet and university and become tight friends. So Thrilled For You is set years later, when they’re in their early 30s and all in different stages of motherhood. The action in the novel takes place at a baby shower, Nicki’s, in fact, as she is heavily pregnant.

The baby shower is thrown for Nicki by Charlotte, who herself is working through infertility issues and attended by Lauren, who brings her baby Woody and Steffi, who very much wants to remain child-free. Each woman represents a different viewpoint of motherhood, the feelings of each are wonderfully detailed and you get a true sense of each perspective.

There are also interspersed chapters of the women being interviewed by the police about the possible arson at the baby shower, which gives So Thrilled For You a secondary crime plot too and really helps drive the pace. Ultimately, this is a fantastic look at how friendships have to adapt as women get older and their priorities change. I’ve always really enjoyed Holly Bourne’s writing style, she is effortlessly insightful and funny and always seems to write what I’m thinking. A great read to kick off the year with!

A really insightful story or motherhood and female friendships. Charlotte, Steffi, Nicki and Lauren are friends from university - the closest of friends then, but life has taken them in different directions since. They meet again at Nicki's babyshower - and all 4 are at very different stages of motherhood. Lauren is struggling to adapt to her life as a mother, Nicki and her husband Matt should be celebrating the upcoming birth of their child but their marriage is crumbling underneath, Charlotte has been through several rounds of fertility treatment to try and have a baby, and Steffi the career woman, who the others resent for her views on motherhood.
So, the tensions between the 4 are simmering underneath, and what better than a steaming hot day to raise tensions to the max and blow apart the years of friendship preceeding this day.
Thrown in to the mix is a police investigation into suspected arson on the day - where the setting off of the baby reveal grenade goes horribly wrong and a fire breaks out. I am not sure the novel needed this thread, and the investigation and conclusion of this actually took away from my enjoyment of the rest of the novel.
But the main thrust of the novel was good - and really opens up the conversation about motherhood and how friendships navigate the issue.

Nicki, Steffi, Charlotte and Lauren have been best friends since University. When Charlotte organises a baby shower for heavily pregnant Nicki, none of them really want to go.

It is one of the hottest summers on record, and they are now in the middle of a sweltering heatwave. Nicki just wants to cool down, and really doesn't want the fuss. In fact. she'd just like to be left alone in peace to mentally prepare herself for the road ahead.

Steffi as much as she loves her friends, has somewhere far more important to be. In fact her career (and business) depends on her being contactable that day. Oh, and she doesn't want Kids. A source of tension between the friends as they try but fail to understand each others viewpoints.

Lauren just wants to sleep, and maybe a baby sitter. A new Mother herself, with a baby that won't sleep and a severe bout of post natal depression and trauma from a complicated birth (that isn't diagnosed until the end of the novel). She is exhausted in every sense of the word.

All Charlotte wants is for the baby shower to go off with a hitch. Which it will, because Charlotte is a meticulous planner. Who is also desperate to be a Mother herself. She plans the day down to the last second, because that's just who she is, but also to distract herself.

She knows that the day is going to be amazing, and talked about for ever. Because as well as a baby shower, the day also has a surprise in store for Nicki, courtesy of Charlotte, and Nicki's husband Matt.

A gender reveal..

Towards the end of the day, when the games have been played, the cupcakes have been devoured and everyone is tired and happy, a gender reveal firework will be set off, with the aim of surprising and delighting.

What could possibly go wrong?

‘So Thrilled For You’ by Holly Bourne is a sharp, heartbreaking, and ultimately life-affirming novel about four women in their early thirties, whose reunion at a baby shower unravels in the midst of a scorching heatwave. Nicki, eight months pregnant, is the center of attention, but the real story lies in the emotional turmoil of her three friends: Steffi, Lauren, and Charlotte. The novel alternates between flashbacks and a police interview, building a gripping tension as the story reveals the complexities of friendship, motherhood, and personal expectations.

The four women - who met at university - are no longer as close as they once were, each now in a different phase of life. Steffi is childfree-by-choice and dedicated to her career, yet feels increasingly alienated as her friends embrace motherhood. Lauren, a new mother, is struggling with the harsh realities of parenthood and feeling isolated from her old life. Charlotte, desperate for a child, is facing the emotional toll of failed IVF attempts, clinging to the hope that manifestation will lead her to motherhood.

Their gathering, meant to celebrate Nicki’s impending arrival, quickly becomes charged with unresolved tensions. The sweltering heat only heightens the sense of discomfort, and as the day unfolds, each woman’s insecurities and frustrations come to the forefront. But when the baby shower is destroyed by a fire — set deliberately — the atmosphere shifts from uncomfortable to downright dangerous, and the narrative is thrust into a tense investigation.

Told through multiple perspectives, the novel uses the structure of police interviews to unravel the mystery of who started the fire. This structure, reminiscent of ‘Big Little Lies’, builds a mounting sense of suspense as each woman’s backstory is revealed through flashbacks. These shifting viewpoints give us insight into the fragile dynamics of their friendship, and as the investigation progresses, suspicions mount, complicating the women’s already strained relationships. The carefully curated facades they’ve built over the years are shattered, revealing deeper truths about the personal pain, jealousy, and unspoken resentments that have been festering underneath their bond.

What makes this novel stand out is its raw portrayal of the realities of motherhood and womanhood. Bourne doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges these women face. Motherhood isn’t depicted as an idyllic, fulfilling journey, but rather a messy, overwhelming, and often isolating experience — especially for those like Lauren, who struggles with the gap between expectation and reality. For Charlotte, the agony of infertility and the pressure of constant disappointment is explored with sensitivity and depth. And for Steffi, the decision to remain childfree is juxtaposed with feelings of alienation, both from society’s expectations and from her friends, who seem to be on entirely different life paths.

While each character is flawed, their struggles feel deeply relatable. Bourne excels at capturing the complexity of female friendships — how love and loyalty can coexist with rivalry and resentment. There’s a palpable sense of these women being both supportive and deeply envious of one another, caught between their shared history and the new lives they’re living. This emotional depth makes it easy to sympathise with all of them, even when their actions seem misguided.

That said, the ending of ‘So Thrilled For You’ might be a bit of a stretch for some readers. The resolution, while satisfying in its own way, feels a little too neat for the complexity of the issues explored. Some might feel that the characters’ final interactions don’t fully reflect the weight of their past mistakes. However, this doesn't take away from the overall impact of the novel.

In summary, ‘So Thrilled For You’ is a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of friendship, motherhood, and the painful realities of adulthood. With its compelling narrative, relatable characters, and emotional depth, it’s a novel that will resonate with anyone who has ever navigated the difficult waters of growing up and growing apart.

A really good read. The story is is set during a baby shower where four friends are all having different experiences related to children and relationship and focuses on the way they cope with their difficulties.Its a great insight into how women cope either having trouble conceiving or the trials of motherhood but can it bring the friends together again especially as an unforseen accident is waiting to happen and who will be found responsible. It's a real page Turneri loved it

It took me a while to get into this book, but by the end I enjoyed it. The characters are all really well written and you really get a sense of them. The dynamics between them all was interesting and the way all aspects of motherhood and how it is perceived and how it feels was really interesting. Overall I would recommend.

This is a compelling and surprisingly gripping story about four university friends, a decade or so down the line, coming together again for a baby shower organised by Charlotte, who is battling with her own fertility problems, for Nicky, only a few weeks away from giving birth. The event is taking place at Nicky’s parents’ house, a modern grand design-type glass house in the countryside on the hottest day of the year. The other two members of the friendship group are Lauren, a new mum with a demanding nine-month old son, and Steffi, single and childless and on the brink of success with her new publishing venture. The characterisations are sharply and sometimes painfully observed - I would challenge most readers not to identify with at least one of the four friends’ experiences, if not more. The intensely and unironically planned details of the baby shower - the ice breakers, games, food and peony wall (for photos) are hilarious, but underpinning it all is a warm story of friendship.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book as an advance copy.

Four close friends since university. It’s the day of Nicki’s baby shower, all arranged and immaculately organised by Charlotte, whose own fertility journey has been filled with disappointments and acute longing. It’s also the weekend Steffi, who had just launched her own publishing agency had pitched a book she hoped would kickstart her name and who was having early eager offers flooding into her emails even over the weekend. And Lauren who had given birth nine months previously and who was suffering from post natal depression with a baby who rarely slept, screamed constantly and had drained her individuality and independence from her. As for Nicki herself, she was dreading the day, knowing Charlotte had gone over the top, a day made worse when the young woman she’d had an affair with had informed her she’d been invited and would see her later.
The country is in the grip of the hottest heatwave for years, the venue a glass house which retains that heat and heated emotions get the better of everyone. What could possibly go wrong?

I absolutely loved this book!! The 4 main characters (The Little Women) basically encompass all aspects of motherhood and you can find something relatable in them all. I loved the way it was written and the little police transcripts throughout the book. The twist at the end was brilliant and brought the book to a satisfying close.

Whilst enjoyable and relatable, there are many aspects of this book that are hard to read and I really liked how Holly Bourne touched upon these in such a realistic and relatable way. Definitely one I will recommend to all!!

A well written story about the intricacies of friendship and how it can all go so wrong yet so right.

Worth a read!

‘So Thrilled For You’ by Holly Bourne is a sharply observed, heartbreaking, life affirming and electrifying novel about a group of four women in their early thirties celebrating the baby shower of eight-months-pregnant Nicki in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave…

Childfree-by-choice Steffi, struggling new mother Lauren and desperate IVF warrior Charlotte complete the foursome, who met at university and reunite less often than they once did now that they are at different life phases. The unbearable temperature ratchets up further due to flames tearing down the uber-instagrammable party, and the police need to find out who is responsible. The reader is transported to the beginning of the day, where suspicion sets ablaze a sequence of flashbacks.

I was totally gripped by this novel, which felt stylistically similar to ‘Big Little Lies’ - with its interview transcripts and shifting perspectives building tension - but so much more relatable (perhaps because of the UK setting and the characters being a similar age to me, but also because the glossy veneer of perfection was ripped apart so swiftly among the pages.

Each character was flawed but understandable, and I saw elements of myself and my friendship group in all of them. Charlotte’s faith in manifestation against the odds and Steffi’s dedication to her career resonated with me the most, but Lauren’s story was the most emotional and raw for me (though perhaps the point of this novel is NOT to compare the women!) The theme of friendship prevailing was strong, and the book culminates with a clever a-ha moment as the truth dawns and more than just the baby’s sex is revealed.

Every woman should read this… five stars!

I received an advance Digital Review Copy of this book from the publisher Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

first of all, i would like to thank netgalley for the opportunity to read this as an arc
i really enjoyed the writting style and could get lost inside the story. the premise was really interesting and i think that if you are the target public, you will resonate with a lot of things described in the book. since the author is a new mom herself and it all felt very real
with that being said, i think i was expecting a different ending or something even bigger
either way, i think this will be a very nice read

So Thrilled For You was definitely thought provoking. The story centres around the trials and tribulations of four women in their 30s who have been best friends since university. The storyline is a baby shower which is held for one of the friends but which ends in a fire at the house, but this almost feels like a secondary storyline to deep-dive into the dynamics of the friendship group. It focuses on so many issues in friendship relationships, as well as lifestyle choices and personal opinions. I thought this book was very clever and I can imagine that most people would relate in some way to one of the characters. If you’re one for overanalysing friendship dynamics I’d suggest this one might be for you!

Incredibly readable and compelling, a book about the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" society we live in when it comes to motherhood, the judgement, the silencing, and the lack of support.

Fans of Holly Bourne's previous work will enjoy this, I had a really good time following these characters and the overarching plots. I will say it's made me even more child-free than I already was lol.

I don't think I was too taken with the "police interview interludes" and I think that entire aspect could have been removed for me; furthermore one of the main characters was not redeemable enough for me to have gotten the ending they did.

I've previously read Holly Bourne's YA story, 'Am I Normal Yet?' which I loved, so was intrigued to see how she would fare with an adult novel as she obviously writes well.

So Thrilled For You is about a baby shower/gender reveal that goes horribly wrong. It is told from the perspective of four people who have had the Little Women friendship group from university days.
I couldn't connect with any of the characters who ranged from unlikeable and irritating to detestable. The whole vibe of the story felt negative and unpleasant and at times I didn't know whether to give up with it.
There was some softening towards the final chapters of the book as ends were tied up, but on the whole it didn't leave me feeling satisfied.
Sorry. I think I prefer the YA stuff.

"So Thrilled For You" tells the story of a baby shower gone awry. It was supposed to be the perfect day: Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte, and Steffi – collectively known as the Little Women – are finally reunited. Between Nicki's pregnancy, Lauren's newborn, Charlotte's infertility struggles and Steffi's agency launch, they've all had a lot on their plates. But now, in the middle of a heatwave, they finally get a chance to catch up. Only, as it turns out, they've all been harbouring secrets – and, more importantly, resentments. As the day grows hotter and hotter, those resentments come to the surface, threatening to, quite literally, go up in flames …

I've read all of Holly Bourne's adult novels, and most of her YA, so I can safely say she really outdid herself with "So Thrilled For You". Books about motherhood are no rarity, but this one navigates the topic with a complexity I've rarely seen. This is in part due to the fact that Bourne chooses to tell the story from a first-person POV while still giving each character a distinct voice. As the novel progresses, it dawns on the reader that there's much more than meets the eye: Steffi grapples with fears of being seen as selfish for choosing a child-free life and prioritizing her career; Nicki holds a grudge against Steffi due to a dark secret of her past; Lauren struggles with PTSD from the birth of her son, made worse by a healthcare system that fails to help; and, finally, Charlotte desperately tries to manage her infertility issues so much with positive thinking that she almost burns herself out in the process. All of them are filled with jealousy, rage, insecurity, and sadness. Except from Nicki, all of the characters are portrayed as complex beings, and you can't help but empathize with them even in their darkest moments.

Bourne is careful to show that's it not just the women who've failed each other – it's society that perpetuates myths like the "Cool Mum", traps men in their weaponized incompetence or fails to provide the care and support new mothers desperately need. The sharp critique, the messiness of the characters, the pacing – all of it is beautifully executed in "So Thrilled For You". I only wish the novel had been longer; the ending fell a bit flat to me. After everything that had happened, I found it hard to believe that things could've been resolved so easily, and would've loved to see the characters confront their issues head-on. Nonetheless, this is a thought-provoking read I cannot recommend enough. You don't have to have children yourself to care for the people who carry them – and I think we should all make sure we provide them with all the support they need.

An enraging, heartbreaking read which while on the surface is a whodunnit, explores the challenges, difficulties and ultimately the "set to fail" expectations of motherhood: "The sheer, audacious, everyday relentless effort of motherhood - such an exhaust- ing, all-encompassing 'gift'." While it focuses on motherhood in the social media age and the expectations that come with that, the feelings described (isolation, conflict of emotions etc) are universal to all mothers.
Brilliant