Author:Judy Astley

Perfect escapism again from the pen of bestselling author Judy Astley, No Place for a Man is a sizzling and seriously funny novel about family life and the eternal need to hold everything - and everyone - together. Perfect for fans of Carole Matthews, Jenny Colgan, Lucy Diamond and Milly Johnson.
'Amusing and entertaining, easily relatable and recognisable characters' -- ***** Reader review
'I couldn't put the book down. Great read!' -- ***** Reader review
'Warm and witty' -- ***** Reader review
'Riveting' -- ***** Reader review
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SOMEONE HAS TO HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER, AND IT WON'T BE HIM!
Jess has just waved goodbye to her darling son, off backpacking to Oz. She's left with two teenage daughters and husband Matt - all of whom find themselves regularly featured in her popular and lighthearted newspaper column in which she conveys to her readers an enviably cheery muddle of family life.
Things become less rosy when Matt, after twenty years with the same firm, is made redundant. Only Jess sees the potential calamity in this. Matt is delighted with his new freedom and takes to hanging out at the local bar with others of the male barely-employable tendency, drinking and drifting and dreaming up hopeless schemes to make them all rich...
Daughter no. 1, meanwhile, has taken up with a mysterious boy living in an abandoned car on the allotment, and her younger sister is over-burdened with a surfeit of secrets.
For Jess, trying to hold everything together and missing her first-flown child, it becomes ever-harder to maintain the carefree façade for her readers. Of course she could just tell them the truth...
Poignant tale… His tales are wonderfully gloomy and self-referential.
—— Jancis Robinson , Waitrose Weekend[The Easter Parade is] Richard Yates' best novel, which makes it wonderful. From the first sentence to the last...I loved the book
—— Joan DidionFew men since Flaubert have offered such sympathy to women whose lives are hell
—— Kurt VonnegutOne of the United States' finest post-war novelists and short-story writers.He wrote some of the best fiction of his generation; it continues to give pleasure to all those readers who are fortunate enough to discover it
—— IndependentA brave, brilliant book
—— Sunday HeraldAs touching as it is real, as beautiful as it is sad. Like a softer, subtler, less salty Updike, Yates expounds a poignant, suburban American realism
—— Time OutA tour de force...an unflinching novel of rare power
—— Mordecai RichlerThat Yates manages to make the novel not only readable but also mesmerizing is testament to his powers as a storyteller... storytelling that is simultaneously easy to digest and hugely satisfying.
—— Leyla Sanai , www.rocksbackpagesblogs.com






