Allison Pearson Books

Kate Reddy is back! This is the follow-up to the international bestseller I Don't Know How She Does It, the novel that defined modern life for women everywhere. This time she's juggling teenagers, aging parents and getting back into the workplace, and every page will have you laughing and thinking: It's not just me. Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is fifty, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate's mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her there but won't talk to her and ailing parents who aren't coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn't even allowed to eat because of the calories. She's back at work after a big break at home, because somebody has to bring home the bacon now that her husband Rich has dropped out of the rat race to master the art of mindfulness. But just as Kate is finding a few tricks to get by in her new workplace, her old client and flame Jack reappears - complicated doesn't even begin to cover it. How Hard Can It Be? is a coming of age story for turning fifty. It's about so much more than a balancing act; it's about finding out who you are and what you need to feel alive when you've got used to being your own last priority. And every page will leave you feeling that there's a bit of Kate Reddy in all of us.

Thirty five year old Kate, fund manager at Edwin Foster, is a victim of time famine: she counts seconds like other women count calories. As she hurtles between appointments, through her head spools the crazy tap[e loop of the working mother's life: must remember client reports, bouncy castles, transatlantic phone call, nativity play, check the Dow Jones, cancel hygenist, squeeze that sagging pelvic floor, make time for sex. Factor in a manipulative nanny, an Australian boss who looks at Kate's breasts as if they're on special offer, a long suffering but definetly suffering husband, her quietly aghast in laws, her two bundles of joy, and an email lover, and you have a woman juggling so many balls that some day soon something's going to hit the ground.

A novel by a writer who understands the female psyche, and observes the male with a wary eye. This novel, set in the '70s and the present day, is about teen obsession, rites of passage and one girl's infactuation with David Cassidy. It's about love in many forms, but first love in particular, how it shapes us and imprints us