Paperback

Published: Lightning Books (September 2019)

ISBN: 9781785631597

The Bad Mother’s Holiday

Suzy K. Quinn

£7.99

Every mother deserves a holiday

The third in the bestselling comedy series

Juliette Duffy is knocked up again. Preggers. Up the duff. To put it another way… whoops.

While she and her hotel magnate boyfriend Alex get their heads around unexpected parenthood, Juliette is having all the usual pregnancy symptoms: throwing up, indigestion, sciatica, constipation, migraines and brain-fuddling tiredness. Because Mother Nature is a psychopathic old hag.

She needs a distraction and this summer she is determined to get away. Her party-loving mother is demanding the usual Duffy family all-inclusive Greek holiday. Her dad wants to go camping in Norfolk. And Alex? Well, he has asked her on a five-star luxury cruise. The trouble is, his mother is coming too...

The third in Suzy K. Quinn’s addictive, bestselling Bad Mother series, where Why Mummy Drinks meets Bridget Jones, is another laugh-out-loud treat.

Extracts

Monday 1st January

New Year’s Day

How do you measure a life in a year?

416 fish fingers cooked for Daisy, but mostly eaten by me.

244 loads of washing.

One stone lost, one gained.

Seven bottles of Calpol.

364 nights of disturbed sleep.

Said ‘no’ approx. 5000 times, told no 50,000 times.

Two calls to 999 (Daisy glo-stick chewing incident and freaky green poo two days after).

One unexpected pregnancy.

One marriage proposal.

Told Daisy ‘I love you’ more times than I can possibly count.

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Extracts

Monday 1st January

New Year’s Day

How do you measure a life in a year?

416 fish fingers cooked for Daisy, but mostly eaten by me.

244 loads of washing.

One stone lost, one gained.

Seven bottles of Calpol.

364 nights of disturbed sleep.

Said ‘no’ approx. 5000 times, told no 50,000 times.

Two calls to 999 (Daisy glo-stick chewing incident and freaky green poo two days after).

One unexpected pregnancy.

One marriage proposal.

Told Daisy ‘I love you’ more times than I can possibly count.


This year? I would like fewer:

Custody battles with Nick, Daisy’s feckless, irresponsible father.

Relationship uncertainties with Alex.

Stressful house renovations.

Mortgage, credit card and utility bills.


Finances are an uncomfortable subject right now.

I’d planned to get a proper grown-up job in London this year, but commuting will be tough now I’m pregnant.

I know employers aren’t supposed to discriminate, but pregnancy mimics hangover symptoms – tiredness, sickness, bad memory, etc. – and lasts all day, every day. There’s no afternoon respite after a restorative Big Mac.

Frankly, I wouldn’t hire me.

Alex has offered to pay my bills during the pregnancy, but told him ‘no thank you’.

Maybe I’m being an idiot, but it would just be too weird. Yes – we’re having a baby together, but our relationship is extremely uncertain.

Have asked Alex to give me thinking space, re: his marriage proposal. I think he’s a bit offended. Am imagining him drinking an expensive Southbank latte, watching the Thames, black hair romantically tousled, dark eyes flashing.

‘Another coffee, Mr Dalton?’

‘No thank you. I’m too furious.’

quotes

‘Suzy K. Quinn is a born storyteller’
Erin Kelly

‘Suzy K. Quinn is one to watch’
Julia Gregson

reviews

‘Very relatable for frazzled parents but also a happy ending’

Stuff – top picks for summer

extras

ABOUT

Suzy K. Quinn

Suzy K. Quinn writes in four different genres: psychological thriller, comedy, romance and children’s fantasy.

She was first published by Hachette in 2010 with her debut novel Glass Geishas (now Night Girls). Then she self-published a romance series, The Ivy Lessons, which became #1 Kindle romance bestsellers in the US and UK. After her second daughter was born in 2013, she self-published the Bad Mother’s Diary series, which also became Kindle bestsellers. Her novels have now been translated into seven languages and her books have sold over 750,000 copies worldwide.

She lives in Wivenhoe, Essex, with her husband Demi and two daughters, and travels to Mexico every year to write and study Mayan story-telling.

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