After sixteen years of marriage, Nate and Sinead Turner have a nice life. They like their jobs, they like their house and they love their son Flynn. Yes, it’s a very nice life.
Or, at least Nate thinks so. Until, one morning, he wakes to find Sinead gone and a note lying on the kitchen table listing all the things he does wrong or doesn’t do at all.
Nate needs to show Sinead he can be a better husband – fast. But as he works through Sinead’s list, his life changes in unexpected ways. And he starts to wonder whether he wants them to go back to normal after all. Could there be more to life than nice?
If this has whet your appetite then check out the extract below and then go and get a copy!!
Outside school, a couple of other latecomers are shambling
up the wide stone steps behind Flynn. It’s a proud and well-kept Victorian
building, a state school with a broad cultural mix. Flynn has always gone to
mainstream school, with extra support when needed, all closely monitored by
Sinead; she’s fought his corner all the way. ‘She’s a powerhouse,’ her old
college friend Michelle reminded me once, and of course I agreed. There was a
pause, and Michelle added, rather belated, ‘And you are too, of course!’
I watch as the other boys scamper up the last few steps to
catch up with my son. How carefree they look, how breezy and laid-back,
unencumbered as they are by tax returns and remembering to put the bins out.
Sure, they might have flunked the odd maths test – but they haven’t yet failed
at anything terribly important, anything that might mark them out as poor
excuses for human beings. The boys stop and laugh loudly at something (thank
God Flynn can still laugh – for now) and disappear into the building together.
I should have been a better, more proactive and useful man,
I realise now. Sinead has deserved more from me. No matter how challenging it’s
been bringing up Flynn, she has never once moaned or expressed a jot of
self-pity. She adores being his mother – considers it an absolute privilege –
and has often said that, where our boy is concerned, she would not change a
single thing—
Bang-bang!
My heart lurches.
‘Nate?’ A thin blonde woman, whom I vaguely recognise, is
rapping sharply on the driver’s side window. ‘Nate,’ she repeats, leaning
closer, ‘are you okay?’
I fumble to lower the window. ‘Erm, yes – I’m
fine, thank you.’ I assume she is something to do with school, but I can’t
remember her name. Sinead is so much better at that stuff than I am, efficiently
filing the names of every teacher and medical practitioner, every cub leader
and all the parents and their children and their pets that we have ever
encountered in her colossal brain. A powerhouse.
The book is out now! Many thanks to Harper Collins for inviting me on the blog tour, don't forget to check out the other stops!
