The Bad Mother's Detox by Suzy K Quinn

4.5 Stars

This is a new series to me and from the off it was clear that there was a pre-story here that I had not read.  Turns out this is book two and apart from fairly frequent references to the history of Juliette, Nick and Alex not having read the first book is not a drawback as everything you need to know is recapped.  Told in diary format by Juliette you have to trust that her narration is honest but it does feel disingenuous in many sections and it would have been interesting to see Nick and Alex's viewpoints.

This is pure fantasy and escapism and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It helps that Juliette's voice is warm, funny and engaging.  So, even though I didn't entirely trust her and found that my brain was doing a lot of internal eye rolling and "Yeah, right"ing  I still raced through the book.  There is such a disconnect with reality displayed that you can't help but enjoy it.  Nobody is getting a mortgage on a fire damaged hovel that has no roof; I don't care who you are mortgages just aren't given on that type of property.  Least of all to someone with no regular income and, let's face it, Juliette does not have a regular income.  Throw in the whole weird Nick applying for sole custody thing and it amps up the unbelievability.

It is, though, undoubtedly fun.  Books are designed to do many things and one of them is entertain and this does that.  I didn't laugh out loud but it did make me smile and that is something that rarely happens when the supposed humour of a book is used as one of it's main selling points.  I like that despite living on top of each other Juliette's family is close knit and seem to genuinely love each other, it's just the people she chooses for herself that aren't good for her.

Great fun and allows you to leave reality far behind.