The Not So Perfect Mum

A hilarious, straight-talking read for fans of Fiona Gibson’s The Mum Who Got Her Life Back and Sarah Morgan’s Family for Beginners.

Previously published as ‘The School Gate Survival Guide’.

Maia is a cleaner for ladies who lunch. With mops and buckets in tow, she spends her days dashing from house to house cleaning up after them, as they rush from one exhausting Pilates class to the next.

But an unusual inheritance catapults her and her children into the very exclusive world of Stirling Hall School – a place where no child can survive without organic apricots and no woman goes a week without a manicure.

As Maia and her children, Bronte and Harley, try to settle into their new life, Maia is inadvertently drawn to the one man who can help her family fit in. But is his interest in her purely professional? And will it win her any favours at the school gate?

A hilarious, straight-talking read for anyone who's ever despaired at the politics of the school run.

Reviews

“Such a funny, feel-good read, a clever riff on the Cinderella story with terrific authentic characters, especially feisty Maia who wouldn't let school gate snobbery keep her down.”
Jane Lythell, author of ‘The Lie of You’

“So witty and fun.” Lucy Atkins author of ‘The Missing One’

“I laughed out loud…a well written, witty reminder that money cannot buy self-worth and confidence.” Novelicious

“The plot was great, the writing was brilliant, the characters adorable.” Kim the Bookworm

“Kerry’s writing style made it effortless to read and I got pulled in from the first page. I loved this book.” Novel Kicks

About the author

Kerry was brought up in Peterborough. She now lives in Surrey with a very tolerant husband and two children. She studied at Bath University and speaks fluent Italian, Spanish and French. She also trained as a journalist at City University, then went on to write travel guidebooks for Thomas Cook.

After landing her dream job working on women’s magazines, she discovered that she hated writing about real people in case their families got upset.

The Writers’ Program at the University of California helped her move from fact into fiction – the perfect forum for exploring human emotions without worrying about some poor mother weeping over her son’s account of his childhood.