Hens Dancing - Hardcover

Barker is a talented comic writer - there is scarcely a word out of place, and the whole confection goes down a treat. All of which makes it your perfect holiday read (Sunday Times)

'A determinedly upbeat novel, it should be read for Barker's elegantly glittering prose and the gentle mockery that greets Venetia's endless domestic mishaps... Venetia is a disarmingly wry and engaging narrator with a keen eye for nature and a shrewd insight into the follies of urban chic' Financial Times

'If you like... Joanna Trollope, you'll definitely warm to Raffaella Barker's Hens Dancing, a comic pastoral tale with added irony and kick' She

An uplifting and witty portrayal of family life in the Norfolk countryside. It celebrates a year of rich friendships and exuberant children, along with an eccentric mother and an infuriating ex... A delightfully wholesome novel with comic bite (Times)

'A fine, spiky even ill-tempered sense of humour' Daily Telegraph

Charming... Overflows with eccentric characters... A satisfying mix of entertaining domestic disasters and musings on kitten heels, hens and new love (Daily Mail)

' A positive hymn to provincial living, it is an entertaining celebration of family life with all its highs and lows, and eccentricities... It puts Barker firmly in the Louise Doughty/ Kate Atkinson camp of interesting female novelists who entertain as much as they inform' The Times

'Raffaella Barker reads like an extended Vogue column. A charming, if eccentric, thirty-something mother of three tells us, diary-style, about her wholesome, wind-blown Norfolk country life... But despite - or maybe because of these easy-read factors, the novel is strangely engrossing' The Sunday Times

'An engaging work, sewn up with a dry line in wit and illuminated by a strongly felt devotion' Scotland on Sunday

'Charning... The author's caustic pen will endear her to grownups who like their women quick-witted and their fairy-tales fractured' Publishing Weekly

Venetia Summers appears to lead a fairy-tale rural existence with her husband and two sons in her tumbledown Norfolk cottage. But when her husband leaves her for his masseuse, not even the arrival of a splendid baby daughter can make up for the sense of loss she feels for her newly lopsided family. Hens Dancing follows Venetia's diaries over the course of a year. It tells of domestic battles - with an unruly garden, errant cockerels, Orcs and War Hammers and a traumatic bathroom conversion. But there are also consolations: a passion for fun fur, the severe beauty of the Norfolk landscape, the regal serenity of the Beauty (Venetia's baby daughter) and perhaps, amongst it all, the promise of new love.