this is released today and i'm SO DELIGHTED about it because i LOVED this book. holly bourne has such a clear and wonderful talent for writing intense, messy interpersonal dynamics and making it gripping, emotional and also funny. if that's what you're into, i super recommend this book.

the novel follows a friendship group. it's the type of female friendship group that met in their teens, at university, but now they've reached their thirties and all the complicated mess of life that goes along with it. within the friend group, there's a heavily pregnant woman, whose baby shower is the main event of the book, someone struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss, someone who has chosen to be child-free and instead concentrate on their career and a brand new business and a woman who is really struggling with post-natal depression. this book really wonderfully presents, skewers, and appreciates the complicated ideas of femininity that society sells and how much people take that into themselves, i thought. all four characters felt huge and funny and heartbreaking and real to me. what holly bourne does here is allow each woman to be as "likeable" and "unlikeable" as each other. they have huge flaws and are worthy of huge amounts of sympathy as well. they have often diamtrically opposing ideas about the same thing. it's so much fun to sit in each of their heads as the book takes its turn with them.

something wonderful i also think she does is such these particular female friendships as messy and human and petty and selfish, sometimes. each character falls victim to pretty severe misunderstanding of others. they think unkind things about each other and sometimes themselves. they are jealous and impatient with each other in a way that i thought rang very authentically when you've known someone for nearly longer than you haven't but your lives have diverged so much. this seems likely to be one of those books that makes some people uncomfortable, but what i thought it did was showcase something with so much bombastic fun and also care. to me, it was so obvious that these women did care about each other -- but life is hard. the constant societal pressures regarding womanhood, and personhood, and motherhood are huge and ever-present. it's hard to get away from and it's even harder in your thirties.

holly bourne's note at the end reveals that she was struggling with an infant who did not want to sleep ever while writing this book and i think it shows in the fierce sympathy and also cloying dread imbued within one of the narratives of the book. i gotta say, the postnatal depression here hits HARD as a storyline. it was very emotional and i thought that, as the book went on, the sheer pain and the terror and the overwhelming nature of it was rendered so well. this felt like a great glimpse at something often swept behind the curtain.

for all that this may Sound Heavy, i do think this book was really funny. i often laughed throughout it. it had a whip sharp sense of humour -- i mean, it literally starts talking about a vulva pinata. instantly hilarious, idc. i laughed so much at lauren's Cool Mum inner monologue, which pays due credit to the Cool Girl bits from gone girl and does it so well.

it's also extremely gripping. it took me maybe 3 hours to read about 75% of this book and i stayed up very late because at no point did i feel like i could put it down. the incident the book revolves around is a huge fire started at a baby shower and i was gasping to know how everything happened, when, and where. this had the cadence and tension of a thriller while also being deeply interested and invested in female spaces and friendships, the complicated areas in between. i absolutely loved this. kiss kiss from me.

i received an arc from netgalley! these are my own opinions. no one would bribe me to say kiss kiss and capitalise sweet fanny adams so

This book is a real warts and all look at motherhood and also female friendships!
Written in multi pov with some really well written and flawed characters.
It's such a good drama with so much going on in each of the characters lives .. it shows how we need to be more open and honest with each other as life can be hard, motherhood can be hard and actually being honest about it really helps.
This book had me completely hooked .. and it was easy to follow each characters story.
I'd recommend if you like a good drama about a group of friends!

So thrilled for you
By Holly Borne
Published by Hodder & Stoughton

Holly Borne’s latest novel ‘So thrilled for you’ does not disappoint!
Funny, relatable, fast-paced and punchy you will laugh, cry and shout out loud!

Four university friends are reunited for a baby shower on the hottest day of summer but time has passed, people change and tempers flare for everyone when “nobody is listening to me!”
Will it all end in tears or tantrums? Who will shout the loudest and be heard?

Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since uni and now in their thirties, they have very different lifestyles and their outlook on life has changed.
So when the baby shower of the year is the talk of the town for pregnant Nicki, the girls have the chance to catch up.
But tensions rise and so does the temperature and by the end of the evening, nothing will ever be the same again!

The celebration becomes a shouting match, and then everyone is a suspect because the house is on fire!
Is it Steffi, happily child-free but judged by everyone?
Is it Charlotte, desperate to have her own baby and jealous of everyone?
Is it Lauren, who is finding motherhood the biggest nightmare ever?
Or is it Nicki herself, who never wanted a baby shower in the first place?

After the puzzle is solved, the police find their truth but will you agree?
Because only the four friends know the truth and that will shock everyone, including you reader!
A wonderful celebration of friendship, honesty and commitment that you will love to read, reflect and maybe change because of…

Joanne Bardgett - teacher of littlies, lover of Children’s literature.
#Netgalley

There's a lot packed into this book!

Four women, friends since school, re-unite for a baby shower for one of them on a sweltering hot summer day. Now in their thirties, life has taken each of them in different directions. Nikki, heavily pregnant, didn't really want a baby shower in the first place; Lauren already has her baby and is finding motherhood so much harder than everyone led her to believe while Charlotte is desperate to conceive and a bit at odds of those who have so easily got pregnant. Then there's Steffi, perfectly happy in her childless state but feeling judged. All those emotions and rising temperatures - inside and out - make for a stressful day . . .

This is a novel which perfectly demonstrates that no two women live the same lives - or have the same attitude towards children. I admit to cringing a bit at the details of Lauren's experience which made me realise how lucky I was when mine were born. The tension is palpable in this one and I had no idea who did what and when until all was revealed. Another terrific read from Holly Bourne. 4.5* and my recommendation.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; this is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

I really enjoyed this part whodunnit mystery part raw and honest exploration of motherhood.

I loved reading about the lives of Nicki, Steffi, Charlotte and Lauren, they are all such interesting characters. The focus is on motherhood. Lauren is a new mother to 9 months old Woody and is recovering from a traumatic birth and suffering from post natal depression. Her story I think affected me the most, as a mother I feel like a lot of the time you are only a fine line away from becoming Lauren and her after care experience in hospital was very similar to mine (something I work really hard to not feel bitter about and still fail almost 6 years later).

I also had a huge amount of empathy for Charlotte watching her friends get pregnant so easily whilst she was desperate to conceive. I can only imagine how hard that must be.

This book felt so real, raw and honest. You can really tell it's written by a new mother for who the newborn days are still at the forefront of their mind. It was so refreshing to read about these imperfect, flawed women and explore how being in their thirties, marrying and having babies has changed their friendship.

I've previously read one of Holly Bourne's YA books and loved it so I'm pleased to have enjoyed her adult fiction just as much! Will definitely read more from this author.

Wow I was expecting this story to be basic not bash everything that is basic and generic. And for that I applaud Holly Bourne for giving well rounded voices to both sides of the child-free movement. It follows a group of friends who have recently drifted apart as they get together to celebrate a baby shower. How Holly describes Steffi’s child free situation is spot on. It really is hard to date and find a partner who is on the same page. Also I feel the lack of equality concerned with celebrating life events. Those events deemed accepted by society I.e a baby shower or hen do and those events that pale in comparison I.e celebrating the success for a female owned business. Then highlighting the massive gaps in care for women especially post birth; ooooffff that was hard hitting. Whilst I enjoyed the read I’ve rated it 4⭐️, I found the ending a bit unexpected and the epilogue sort of too fluffy for my liking which lost a star. Still I’d recommend it to anyone who like a who done it sort of story with mixed media (police reports, text messages etc)

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for sending me an advanced reader copy of this book

Completely brilliant! So brutally honest, it’s refreshing. Hilarious, yet also utterly heartbreaking. Holly Bourne, you have left me still chuckling away to myself, yet emotionally wrung out, all at once!

Nicki’s baby shower should be everything she wants, but it’s been organised by her friend Charlotte, who has chosen to gift her own baby shower dreams to Nicki, as she hasn’t been able to conceive herself. To say that Charlotte is a control freak is a huge understatement and the baby shower is nothing like Nicki would have planned for herself. The two women met and became friends at uni, along with Steffi and Lauren. Steffi is a career focused businesswoman who doesn’t want children and Lauren is mum to Woody, a seven month old who doesn’t sleep for more than 40 minutes and cries constantly when he’s awake. Lauren is a shadow of her former self, exhausted and desperate.

This amazing story explores friendships and relationships, new motherhood and the impact of our actions on others. I really appreciated the honest take on pregnancy and motherhood as I have always wondered how anyone can find it as easy as some women seem to claim, because IT IS INCREDIBLY HARD! No, no, whatever you’re now thinking, it’s harder than that!

Within the story of the baby shower, the women are being interviewed by the police after the party, which has ended in disaster. There are also flashbacks to their uni days, which gives an insight into the early basis of their friendships and relationships.

5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Holly Bourne and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Holly Bourne has a real knack of creating characters that you instantly bond to and she's great at describing emotions and contrasting opinions. I enjoyed the strong female friendship - both good and bad - theme in So Thrilled For You and the story is a bit of a change of style in that it has elements of mystery and crime in it. I think Holly has managed to give a very real portrayal of motherhood , warts and all , and this believable, raw element to the storyline was easy to empathise with.

So Thrilled For You
by Holly Bourne

There's something exhilarating about a story that opens with a house in flames. Taylor Jenkins Reid's "Malibu Rising", Celeste Ng's "Little Fires Everywhere", you just know that there are layers of discoveries to be anticipated and a wild ride ahead, and this is certainly the case here.

Four friends, each with their own complex attitude to motherhood and each with their own secrets to hide.

One is pregnant, her first baby due any day and today is the day of the baby shower that she is, at best, ambivalent about, but the party is being thrown by the friend who struggles with infertility and who may be imposing her own Pinterestable dreams on the occasion. Joining them are the career obsessed friend who has made no secret of the fact that she has no intention of becoming a mother and cannot understand why the whole world, including her best friends, cannot find value in her unselfish selfishness, none more so than the fourth friend who has recently given birth and who is barely holding it together through lack of sleep, loss of identity, inability to keep all the balls in the air and crippling guilt over the equal parts love and resentment she feels towards her baby.

The best thing about this book is the way I can find pieces of myself in each of these women. It makes feel seen on so many levels because I have been each of these women at some stage of my life, and relate viscerally to the conflicts each feel about the others, about how they relate to each other, how they judge each other, how they judge themselves and how they feel judged by each other. Motherhood; it's avoidance, it's achievement, it's reality, is so complicated.

Told through revolving perspectives, this is a completely absorbing story. The author slowly reveals the underlying contradictions that add the spark to the incendiary dynamics that make up this group of lifelong friends. The pace starts well, then gradually picks up heart-thumping acceleration, until someone burns this goddamn house right down.

A well plotted character study that should not be mistaken for a mystery. Would make a great TV mini series.

Publication date: 16th January 2025
Thanks to #NetGalley and #HodderStoughton for providing an eGalley for review purposes

This was a lot more fun than I expected. A baby shower in a heatwave that has gone completely wrong and a police investigation into the events of the day made what was effectively a summary of a 12 hour event into more of a whodunit.

The four women in question - the Little Women - Nikki, Lauren, Steffi and Charlotte, may well be a close fit for the Sex and the City cast (Charlotte especially), but their voices, stories and experiences were clear.

Lauren was a frighteningly honest depiction of the worst experiences of childbirth and being a new parent, all rolled into one individual trauma, that, as a recent parent, was tough and sometimes familiar reading.

It's a story of sisterhood under false pretences, only for the group to finally find their common ground. It's not a rom com, or a thriller, but something more unique that works really well, as well as being four honest approaches to motherhood (or not, as the case may be).

Should come with strong trigger warnings of miscarriage and PTSD, however.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

So far when reading this book I have enjoyed and most intrigued about the current connections in this group of friends. They are all relatable in their own ways and it is interesting to see them all with different struggles coming together.

Though I was first pulled in by the cover and the blur, I feel like I was expecting something quite different. I was imagining something a little grittier, perhaps in the unhinged woman trope, rather than the comedy and sometimes more ridiculous and over the top moments. Additionally I was surprised from the first page that the fire mentioned in the blurb, resulted in a forest fire. I still am not sure about this featuring, sometimes feeling like it was making light of a more serious situation. However, after thinking about it a little deeper, the effects of the climate crisis are happening in the everyday for so many people, why not mention it as surely it would be effecting characters in a contemporary novel too. I feel like there could be some more delicacy around the topic, but interested to see whether the author has interest in the topic and includes this within other of her novels too.

I'm not mad I picked this up, but didn't feel like to had been marketed to me quite correctly.

4 friends since uni (the little women) come together for one of their baby showers at very different points in their lives. All 4 have plenty going on and not a lot of time to understand the others’ issues. Can years of friendship withstand major life events, hurt feelings and a fire? I really enjoyed this book. It flitted between the current and past perspectives of the four little women and because of this it felt fast paced and always interesting. No struggling to get through chapters, just always learning something new about one of them. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys books on friendships, funny books and for people that don’t mind serious topics about sexuality, pregnancy and infertility. This book covered a lot of serious topics but in a light manor that didn’t take away from the story of friendships.

Maybe because I'm not a mother but it did absolute validate my decision not to have kids lol. It was a nice book about female friendships, hardships of growing up and growing apart and forgiveness. Though it's based around one event the jumping viewpoints are good to see each perspective.

If you love action this probably isn't the book for you but if you prefer to focus on character relationships then this is the one for you.

Lots of excellent lengthy reviews already here for this book which I agree with in the main. I really did enjoy it, although I don’t have children and couldn’t really relate to Steffi, the one who didn’t want any. I liked the format but I felt the question of who was at fault for the fire really got lost amongst all the other drama and angst in the book. I also seem to be the only one who felt confused by the ending, particularly with Charlotte who ended up being my favourite of them all.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC of this book.

Wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did but it’s a great read.

The story follows a group of women that connect at university and feel they are friends for life calling themselves “Little women” after the first book they were required to read at uni. Over the years their individual lives and struggles that follow change their characters and views on life. These difference bubble over at a baby shower and tears their friendship to the max.

I enjoyed the style of writing giving me “Big Little Lies” vibes. The story unfolds through different viewpoints of the friends, flitting from the past to the present day. Then throw in police interviews with each member of the group and you are certainly kept interested in the plot.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Nikki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university, sharing the highs and lows of love, life, their careers, and everything in between. Nikki's baby shower is the perfect opportunity for them all to get back together - but on a scorching hot day, tensions between the group are building just beneath the surface waiting for a spark to light the fuse for the mother of all explosions...

I absolutely loved this novel! The theme of motherhood and the different ways that women approach it are explored through the four main characters. All of the characters had elements that I could relate to, whether they had children or wanted them, or focusing on their career, which I think made this book really work. You can see that there is no simple "one size fits all" approach, even if you want children desperately it doesn't mean you will get pregnant, or you have a much wanted child and then feel that you've made a terrible mistake.

The portrayal of Lauren's postnatal depression felt really authentic and I was so tense reading her chapters! Her experience of birth and new motherhood were so far away from the dream that is sold on social media and Pinterest and I really felt for her. I could then totally understand her feelings and motivations for acting the way she did at the baby shower (without giving too much away!).

Nikki was the most complex and layered character. She's a bit of a Queen Bee and manipulates others to get what she wants, or to get herself out of trouble. I really enjoyed reading the chapters from her perspective.

The setting of the baby shower in Nikki's parents enormous glass house in the countryside and it being the hottest day of the year was a great backdrop. The creeping tension and sense of irritability rose with the mercury, you could practically feel the stifling air when reading. I liked the way the chapters start with the transcript of the police interviews following the fire as they try to get to the truth of how the blaze started and who is responsible, with the actual events then revealed by the characters. It had a wonderful soap opera/thriller feel. I can see this being adapted for a Netflix series and being totally bingeworthy!

A great read and a real page turner.

Recommend to readers who enjoyed the vibes of Big Little Lies, Expectation by Anna Hope, or Blue Sisters by Coco Mellor.

Not many people are destined to tell stories, but Holly Bourne definitely is.

Already wildly in love with her YA works and other contemporary fiction works, I was over the moon to receive this early copy of So Thrilled For You.

I know Holly Bourne's voice in heartbreaking YA stories and compelling contemporary stories about womanhood, but the mystery thriller of this book was new to me and let me tell you: it. did. not. disappoint.

This was perfectly done. Even attempting to write 4 different perspectives would send me into an actual coma, but she did it. Never was there one second where I was confused or lost. I was always hooked and engaged with our main characters Nicki, Lauren, Steffi and Charlotte. I WANTED to get to know them. Love them. Despise them. Empathize with them. These characters rammed their claws into my mind and never let go.

The mystery was a real page turner for me and kept me on my seat for the whole duration of the story, but what this book really focuses on is - emotions and personal beliefs. As messy and complex as they are. As a 20-something year old childless millennial, I do know very little about what it means to be a mother, but Bourne did an amazing job portraying the different iterations of motherhood and shared a piece of her own experience as a new mother with all of us clueless chickens.


This book definitely holds a special place in my heart - no - my soul and I would recommend it to everyone so very much. Usually I would say, that you might enjoy it if you've read genre XYZ but no, you will enjoy it no matter what. Trust me on this one.

This is a brilliant novel from Holly Bourne. What can possibly go wrong at a simple baby shower? Well it's far from a simple affair for a start! Friendships are tested and the truth begins to reveal itself!
Absolutely brilliant.

So Thrilled for You is about a baby shower which goes wrong, focusing on the intensity of female friendship and how toxic it can be. Nicki, Lauren, Charlotte and Steffi have been friends since university, but the different directions their lives have taken them in is causing friction within the group. While Nicki is excitedly expecting her first child, Lauren is struggling to cope with being a new mother, Charlotte is desperately trying to conceive, and Steffi very publicly doesn’t want children and is tired of people judging her about it.

I loved how this examined what it’s like to have friends in your thirties, when life choices diverge and you have less time to spend together. This was interwoven with an unflinching look at motherhood, exploring topics such as infertility, early motherhood and pregnancy, against the backdrop of a baby shower where emotions are heightened. Each of the four friends had a very different view on motherhood at the start of the novel, which escalated as the novel progressed.

Things got tense very quickly, with engaging characters and storylines driving the narrative forward. Nicki’s story was my favourite, but every character was so compelling that I couldn’t put this down!

An insightful page-turner examining motherhood and friendship, which I loved from start to finish. Thank you to @hodderbooks for this gifted copy 😊

I was asked to review by NetGalley, wow what a book!

This book explores what we all struggle as women, mothers we all know those who desparately want motherhood, and those who stuggle with IVF and concieving. Then there are those who dont interesting that we know so many people but it is not really explored in books.

The characters are good and well written and the author is good at describing points of view from women which is really interesting.

Really well written and completed really well

Recommended read due for publication in 2 days time so not long to wait.