Two very different books that have hit the best-seller lists are School for Husbands, and Bad Heir Day, both by Wendy Holden, a former Deputy Editor of Tatler. She is an author whose books deserve better than to be 'bundled' by Waterstone's -- that is, two different books sold in shrink-wrap -- in an attempt to differentiate the chain's 'own' promotions from the shared ones, such as Richard & Judy's Book Club. This latter promotion, a spin-off from the televised reader's club on the hugely popular Britsih chat show, is what has driven the surge in demand for populist books such as Holden's.
School for Husbands is the story of Mark, recently redundant and now trying too hard in his new job, and Sophie, working mum to a baby Arthur, who feels taken for granted. When Mark starts to work late, she assumes the worst when his PA From Hell rings from a country house where they have gone from a conference. The situation is exacerbated by her scheming mother, who feels Sophie could have done better, and a scheming old flame of Sophie's.
School for Husbands is mildly amusing, but really only steps a notch to laugh out loud funny with the entrance of the wonderful Doctor Martha Krankenhaus, and her School for Husbands; the idea is to teach neglectful husbands how to reconnect with their wives. Full of wonderful pseudo psycho-babble, and aided by Jon Wayne, salonista, Martha Krankenhaus is so grotesquely over the top that she is by far the star turn of School for Husbands
Bad Heir Day is a very different, and to be frank much better book. Anna is the hapless woman shacked up with Seb, "impossibly handsome, impossibly rich, and generally just impossible." After they attend a wedding in a Scottish castle, where Anna meets the relentlessly focused Geri, Seb dumps Anna for an old flame. At Geri's suggestion, Anna gets a job as personal assistant to Cassandra, wife of aging rock star lothario Jett St Edmunds, and mother to "spawn of satan" Zak. When Anna meets Jamie, one of the waiters at the wedding, who is (improbably) laird of the castle, she can't believe her luck. Nor should she...
The characters in Bad Heir Day are much more broadly drawn and over the top than in School for Husbands -- especially the demure Scottish housewife who writes some of the most filithily pornographic material imagineable -- and it's much more uproariously funny than the earlier book.
