'Instructions Not Included'

Two months back (god, has it been so long?), the nice people at Virgin Books sent me a copy of Charlotte Moerman's book 'Instructions Not Included' to read and possibly review.

Charlotte, after a career in marketing, had 3 sons in quick succession and found that being a full time mum (with a travelling - Dutch - husband; sound familiar, anyone?) pushed more buttons for her than paid (note my use of the word 'paid') employment. She's got a way with words though, so when she started to write down her experiences was soon co-opted into writing 'The Buggy Blogger' and was consequently to write a book based on that.

'Instructions Not Included' is the result, and was published on the 19th March. I enjoyed it, although I did find it jumped around a little, and at times - probably due more to the fact that I only ever manage to find time to sit and read just before I fall asleep - that was quite hard going. However, I can imagine that if you are offered the chance to use your blog posts to form the backbone of a book it can be quite hard to do that in a seamless way. Which isn't at all meant to damn with faint praise; Charlotte writes well, perceptively, and is very funny, and I will definitely spend my own money (!) to read the next book that I believe she's working on at the moment.

And three boys? Let's just say, after reading this, I'm full of admiration for her, and gladder than ever that we've settled for two...