Rooster

‘I loved this book and I tore through it, unable to predict what was going to happen next. Natasha is a heroine with whom a million women of a certain age will identify’ Jojo Moyes

‘Vivid, personal and filled with wisdom, sass and life lessons . . .this is a beautiful book‘ Alan Cummings

‘Wise, hilarious and tender. When Rooster ended I even missed the rooster.’ Esther Freud

'Poignant, vivid, laugh-out-loud funny, Rooster is a sparkling debut' Gillian Anderson

Natasha’s life is a perfectly calibrated illusion, motivated by a feverish desperation to hide her working-class, dysfunctional childhood. No one who knows her can deny this strategy is working.

Social mobility: tick.

Happy daughter: tick.

Keeping recovering addict mother at bay: tick.

Scheduling sex to keep marriage alive: tick.

When her husband leaves her for their slovenly, easy-going dog walker, Natasha’s carefully curated world implodes, and she is plunged into a spiral of chaos and obsession as her perfect life unravels.

But an unlikely friendship with a rooster named Freddie Mercury and his owner Barry sets Natasha on the slow journey back home, to her family, and to herself.

Rooster is a poignant, laugh-out-loud story of marriage, perfectionism, middle life, and how the ghosts of childhood come back to haunt us even when we’re sure we’ve left them behind.