My Lurid Past

Lauren Henderson

Average Rating 6/10 (1 Review)

Take one single girl with a commitment problem.
One friend stuck in a sexless marriage.
A celebrity chef with the sex drive of a rhino on Viagra.
Two very large Dutchmen.
A mother from hell.
And a successful dominatrix.

Mix together and stand well back.

Food PR Juliet Cooper has never had any trouble meeting men - she just doesn't want them hanging round her flat on a Sunday, asking her how she feels about her mother. But after four years of serial dating, she's discovering that men have a tendency to repeat on you. Meanwhile, her best friend Gillilan's sex life pretty much ended when she said 'I do'.

Juliet and Gillian are secretly envious of each other's lives. The comfort and companionship of marriage? Lovely! The excitement and freedom of a single life? Bliss! But then the grass is always greener, as they're about to discover...

Lauren Henderson's deliciously funny new novel tells the truth about what women really want, and how sometimes - against all the odds - they get it.

Review by Chrissi (010502) Rating (6/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 6/10
I picked this up because I have some others by the same author. The books are about Sam Jones, a woman who finds dead bodies in some very strange places. This is a stand-alone piece, whose only common theme with Sam Jones is that they both have a lifestyle including fetish clubs and wearing rubber clothing.

Juliet is a PR who deals with food, she represents authors and spends a lot of time putting together ways to make us all like the next big thing. The next big thing in this case is Liam, a new TV chef who is like a dog on heat trying to sleep his way through the majority of London while he can. Juliet has more problems than just a randy chef, though, her love life has gone weird, she feels that she cannot have meaningless one night stands and worries that she may be burnt out, a concern laughed at by her two closest friends, one of whom is a dominatrix and the other who is in a sexless marriage. Both of these friends would seem to be less than objective.

I suppose that this book would qualify as chick-lit, it has the requisite violently coloured cover, complete with a cocktail glass and a well manicured hand dropping a strawberry into the glass. It is all here, the man that she wants and who she finds is a serial adulterer, the one that she did not fancy to begin with but who she sees something deeper in, but not until very close to the end. She has set backs, flu and a truly vile mother and soggy brother. You cannot help but like her, and she is really very nice, but in truth, if you want to read a Lauren Henderson, I would recommend that you by-pass this one and pick up a Sam Jones instead.
Chrissi (1st May 2002)