A funny and perceptive book about real relationships, and what happens to love when life gets in the way. Perfect for fans of Sue Townsend and Helen Fielding.

‘I can’t put it down’ Marika Cobbold

Meet Molly Bennett.

Married to Max, and mother to two warring teenagers,
she’s what Bridget Jones would call a ‘smug married’.
But smug’s the last thing Molly feels, especially after the birthday she’s just ‘celebrated’. . .

Is it because everyone seems to be having a better time of it than her? Or is it that Max has started showing more interest in ‘business trips’ and less interest in their sex life? Molly begins to despair. And then an old school friend starts flirting with her through Facebook …

If you crossed Bridget Jones’s Diary with The Thick of It, this book is what you’d get.

Polly James was born in Wales, but currently lives in East Anglia, where she works as a writer and editor. She is married and has two (supposedly) adult children.

She would probably still be making excuses not to write, if one of her ex-employers (an MP) hadn't told her that she should be a novelist, instead of earning her living by writing letters for him to sign. Polly took his advice, handed in her notice, and went back to college to study for a degree in Creative Writing.

Three years later, she started to blog and tweet as Molly Bennett - and found her voice.

She also became addicted to the feed-back she got from readers - whether in emails saying how much they loved the characters, or in tweets about lines that had made them laugh - and she was amazed by how much people seemed to care about what would happen to Molly next.

"Diary of an Unsmug Married" is an attempt to answer that question, and her second book will also feature Molly and her family. (Polly still keeps a diary, too, though she has no intention of publishing that.)