Wendy Holden
BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
- Title: Azur Like It
- Description:
Cannes life be this Nice? Fantastic fun. Witty.frothy, wonderfully high-spirited. rrp £12.99 
- Title: Simply Divine
- Description:
Twentysomething magazine journalist Jane has enough stress--between breaking up with her boyfriend, falling in love with a man who leaves the country the next morning, and being generally bemused by her weight. The last thing Wendy Holden\\\'s heroine needs is glamorous socialite Champagne D\\\'Vyne, who pops effervescently and annoyingly into her life. \\\"Champagne\\\'s combination of stunning beauty and astounding vacuousness seemed to have struck some kind of chord with public and media alike. The Lost Chord, a despairing Jane supposed.\\\" Meanwhile, her best friend Tally\\\'s crumbling ancestral manse in Lower Bulge is about to be sold off unless Jane can find a rich knight to come to the rescue and, while she\\\'s at it, nab one for herself. Simply Divine sparkles with sharp, acerbic wit as the author pierces high society\\\'s extravagant pretensions and leaves the reader choking with laughter. Tally always had had superior eyesight. This honing of the optics came, Jane imagined, courtesy of the genetic inheritance of generations of Venerys scanning the horizons of their vast acreage. Being grand, however, had its downside too. Like the girls at Fabulous, Tally had always suffered the most agonizing of periods. Blue blood was evidently more painful. Holden launches the reader into a world of double-barreled socialites (including Pandora Smellie-Lewes, Princess Loulou Fischtitz, and Fluffy Fronte-Bottom) and the offices of the Gorgeous and Fabulous magazines where only girls with slim calves and tinted bikini lines get onto the front covers and, for that matter, through the front door. In her first satire Wendy Holden proves her superior social optics. --Nicola Perry 
- Title: Pastures Nouveaux
- Description:
Country life doesn't prove quite so simple for the sophisticated city folk in Pastures Nouveaux, best-selling author Wendy Holden's hilarious "comedy of country manors". Although some of the rural inhabitants are poor as church mice, the majority are not and all pursue the same recreational activities (money and sex) as their urban cousins.The belle of the country set is Rosie, a freelance illustrator, who (originally) is not desperately seeking a man, marriage or babies. In fact, natural beauty Rosie doesn't seem to have a problem with men at all. Although she has a partner (Mark is an arrogant journalist whose work involves dishing the dirt on the famous), he is quite obviously unsuitable for such a nice girl. It doesn't take long (page two) before Rosie thinks there must be more to life. So when Mark is given his own column about, wait for it, the travails of sophisticated city folk who move to the hilariously simple "country", she is soon romping with a very mixed set from the nouveaux-riches Samantha and Guy to a farmer fatale and a mysterious millionaire.Thanks to her previous jobs on national newspapers and up-market glossies, Holden slickly draws her caricatures of urban types from the single-minded financiers, for whom extra-marital sex is a hobby, to their stick-insect, interior design-obsessed wives to vacuous, celebrity-sniffing media types. Champagne D'Vyne, Holden's posh-totty socialite and star of previous tales, even makes a cameo appearance (as herself, nach). If you are looking for a light read, nouvelle literature that won't stretch you too much, read on! --Carey Green 
- Title: Fame Fatale
- Description:
She hit the big time. But then it hit back. 
- Title: Fame Fatale
- Description:
With a wry nod to her own nomination for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award, Wendy Holden's third novel, Fame Fatale, explores what happens when the literati and the glitterati become entangled. Grace Armiger works for Hatto and Hatto, a crumbly old publisher who produce "books that no one reads" by "obscure and unsuccessful authors". When not tripping over Louis de Bernières at literary parties (something of an occupational hazard for all of the bookish types in this novel), Grace tries "interesting uninterested journalists" in Hatto's wares, usually with little success. If her professional life is a mess then her personal life is (surprise, surprise) even worse. Her ardent Marxist boyfriend Sion, the author of the catchily entitled thesis "Why New Labour are Bastards", is not above discarding his principles and his underpants to further his career. A fling with Hatto author Henry Moon, after one too many glasses of Pinot Grigio (Chardonnay is obviously passé in literary circles these days), leaves Grace feeling confused. Her best friend Ellie and diplomat mother, Lady Armiger, are not short of dating advice but her cleaner Maria (who may have just discovered the next Harry Potter) appears to be casting a very bizarre spell on her love life. Add Champagne D'Vyne, Holden¹s stock vacuous socialite (this time she's gone spiritual); Belinda Black, a big-breasted, leather-skirted, tabloid hack; and Red Campion, an oh-so-sensitive (but possibly sex-addicted) movie star and wannabe writer and an array of familiar comic set pieces are in motion. Fans will delight in (and detractors will still hate) the bad puns, bad sex, slim plotting and an ending that is, without giving too much a way, pure Mills and Boon. Holden is never going to be Evelyn Waugh but there's enough satirical bite to this frothy celebrity romp to make it stand out from the crowd.--Travis Elborough 
- Title: The School For Husbands
- Description:
Sophie's marriage was perfect but now it's all gone wrong. mark works later, she's left with the baby, domestic drudgery, her own career to keep on the go and a feeling Mark's up to something. When, one night, he fails to come home it's the last straw.
She wants a divorce but he doesn't. He hasn't been unfaithfull, just thoughtless. Desperate to save his marriage, Mark enrols at the 'School for Husbands', which does what it says on the tin. But will its intensive and unusual tuition be enough to reunite him with Sophie? Especially now an eligible millionaire is after her...
- Title: The Wives Of Bath
- Description:
A tale of yummy mummies with flat brown tummies! Four parents-to-be seem ante-natally sorted. Flash Hugo and Amanda have booked a chic private clinic and royal maternity nurse. Right-on Jake and Alice want an all-natural home birth with whale music and tree-hugging nappies. But nothing goes quite to plan. Amanda finds motherhood less glam than the stars make it look and disappears back to her career. Which leaves Hugo with the child and without a clue what to do. Alice has problems too. Bringing up baby to Jake's eco-fascist standards means home-made organic everything and a recycled cardboard cot. Will nappiness bring happiness to anybody? Not before bedhopping spouses, beastly bosses and bitchy nursery mothers have all done their dreadful worst!
About the Author Wendy Holden was a journalist on The Sunday Times, Tatler and The Mail on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer. She has published five previous novels, all Top Ten bestsellers, and is married with two young children. 
- Title: Bad Heir Day
- Description:
When Anna is dumped by her rich boyfriend, she vows to give up men and concentrate on her career. However, when she finds herself working for a social climber from hell she can't wait to escape. Jamie, the charming heir to a castle in Scotland, seems to provide the perfect answer. Can Anna's luck have changed? From the author of SIMPLY DIVINE. About the Author Wendy Holden has previously worked for Harpers and Queen, The Sunday Times Style section and Tatler and is currently at the Mail on Sunday. Excerpted from Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved The bride had still not arrived. Beside Anna, Seb fidgeted, sighed and tutted, while the surrounding cacophony of wailing babies and coughing increased. There seemed, Anna saw as she glanced round the candlelit chapel, to be an awful lot of people there. All better dressed than herself. As she caught the haughty eye of a skinny and impeccably turned-out brunette, Anna dropped her gaze to her feet. Realising that there had been no time even to clean her shoes, she immediately wished she hadnt. Everything had been such a rush. After breakfasting at his usual leisurely pace, Seb had glanced at the invitation properly for the first time and, after much panicked scanning of the Scottish mainland, eventually discovered the location of the wedding somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Fucking hell, I thought it was in Edinburgh, he roared. Its practically in Iceland. Seb thrust the AA Road Atlas at her, his stabbing finger a good quarter inch off the far northwest coast of Scotland. Anna stared at the white island amid the blue, whose shape bore a startling resemblance to a hand making an uncomplimentary gesture with its middle finger. She glanced at the invitation. Dampie Castle, Island of Skul, she read. Well, I suppose getting married in a castle is rather romantic . . . Castle my arse, cursed Seb. Why cant they get married in Knightsbridge like everybody else? Perhaps we shouldnt bother going, Anna said soothingly. After all, she had met neither component of the unit of Thoby and Miranda whose merger they were invited to celebrate. All she knew was that Thoby, or Bollocks, as Seb insisted on calling him, was a schoolfriend of his. There seemed to be very few men who werent. While his habit of referring to Miranda as Melons confirmed Annas suspicions that she was one of his ex-girlfriends. Again, there seemed to be very few women who werent. Seb, however, was hell-bent on putting in an appearance. Abandoning plans to drive to Scotland, they flew first class from Heathrow to Inverness instead and drove like the wind in a hired Fiesta to the ferryport for Skul, Seb in a rage all the way. Being stopped by a highway patrol car and asked, Having trouble taking off, sir? had hardly improved his temper. In the end, they had arrived at Dampie too late to be shown their room, too late to look round the castle, too late to look at the castle at all, as darkness had long since fallen. Too late to do anything but rush to the chapel, where the evening service would, Seb snarled as they screeched up the driveway, be halfway through by now at least. Only it wasnt. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. 
- Title: Azure Like It
- Description:
cannes life be this nice?
love in a hot climate
a comic romance in the south of france 
- Title: Bad Heir Day
- Description:
Anna's boyfriend Seb is impossibly handsome, impossibly rich and generally just impossible. When eventually he dumps her, she vows to give up men and throw herself into her career. Which is how she ends up working for Cassandra. The social climber from hell, Cassandra has a huge house in Kensington, a philandering rock star husband and the spawn of Satan for a son. So when desperate-to-escape Anna meets dashing Jamie, charming heir to a castle in Scotland, she can't believe her luck. And she probably shouldn't... About the Author Wendy Holden has previously worked for Harpers and Queen, The Sunday Times Style section and Tatler. Excerpted from Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved The bride had still not arrived. Beside Anna, Seb fidgeted, sighed and tutted, while the surrounding cacophony of wailing babies and coughing increased. There seemed, Anna saw as she glanced round the candlelit chapel, to be an awful lot of people there. All better dressed than herself. As she caught the haughty eye of a skinny and impeccably turned-out brunette, Anna dropped her gaze to her feet. Realising that there had been no time even to clean her shoes, she immediately wished she hadnt. Everything had been such a rush. After breakfasting at his usual leisurely pace, Seb had glanced at the invitation properly for the first time and, after much panicked scanning of the Scottish mainland, eventually discovered the location of the wedding somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Fucking hell, I thought it was in Edinburgh, he roared. Its practically in Iceland. Seb thrust the AA Road Atlas at her, his stabbing finger a good quarter inch off the far northwest coast of Scotland. Anna stared at the white island amid the blue, whose shape bore a startling resemblance to a hand making an uncomplimentary gesture with its middle finger. She glanced at the invitation. Dampie Castle, Island of Skul, she read. Well, I suppose getting married in a castle is rather romantic . . . Castle my arse, cursed Seb. Why cant they get married in Knightsbridge like everybody else? Perhaps we shouldnt bother going, Anna said soothingly. After all, she had met neither component of the unit of Thoby and Miranda whose merger they were invited to celebrate. All she knew was that Thoby, or Bollocks, as Seb insisted on calling him, was a schoolfriend of his. There seemed to be very few men who werent. While his habit of referring to Miranda as Melons confirmed Annas suspicions that she was one of his ex-girlfriends. Again, there seemed to be very few women who werent. Seb, however, was hell-bent on putting in an appearance. Abandoning plans to drive to Scotland, they flew first class from Heathrow to Inverness instead and drove like the wind in a hired Fiesta to the ferryport for Skul, Seb in a rage all the way. Being stopped by a highway patrol car and asked, Having trouble taking off, sir? had hardly improved his temper. In the end, they had arrived at Dampie too late to be shown their room, too late to look round the castle, too late to look at the castle at all, as darkness had long since fallen. Too late to do anything but rush to the chapel, where the evening service would, Seb snarled as they screeched up the driveway, be halfway through by now at least. Only it wasnt. 
- Title: The Full Monty
- Description:
Inspired by a visit of The Chippendales to a local ladies' night, Gaz drags his best friend Dave and a most unlikely group of "strippers" through a series of hilarious adventures in pursuit of their strip-for-cash scheme. 
- Title: Bad Heir Day
- Description:
Girly fiction. 
- Title: Simply Divine
- Description:
Champagne D'Vyne is a celebrity socialite with a charmed life - and a mania for men, money and fame. jane is a journalist with an ordinary life - love stress, work stress and a spare tyre that won't go away. As their contrasting worlds become bizarrely intertwined, Jane realises that the blonde, busty and blatantly ambitious Champagne will let nothing come between her and what she wants. Least of all jane. 
- Title: Pastures Nouveaux
- Description:
The witty new novel from number one bestselling author of "Simply Divine" and "Bad Heir Day". Artist Rosie has always dreamed of a peaceful country cottage - but once she gets what she wants she finds out that village life is not the way she predicted it. A cast of hilarious characters conspire to ensure that life is not the same. About the Author Wendy Holden worked for Harpers & Queen, The Sunday Times Style section and Tatler. She now writes full-time. 
- Title: The School For Husbands
- Description:
This is a hilarious new novel from bestselling author Wendy Holden. Sophie's marriage was perfect, but now it's all gone wrong. Mark works late; she's left with the baby, domestic drudgery, her own career to keep on the go and the growing feeling that Mark is having an affair. When he fails to come home one night it's the last straw. Sophie wants a divorce. But Mark doesn't. He hasn't been unfaithful, just thoughtless. Desperate not to lose his family, he signs up to the 'School for Husbands'; which transforms hopeless spouses into perfect marriage partners. But will its intensive and unusual tuition be enough to get him back with Sophie? Especially now an eligible millionaire is after her! 
- Title: Simply Divine: And Bad Heir Day
- Description:
Simply Divine: Champagne, a celebrity socialite with a charmed life. Jane, a twenty something jpiurnalist, with an ordinary life. Their contrasting lives become intertwined. Bad Heir Day: Anna's boyfriend is impossibly rich and handsome, when eventually he dumps her , she vows to give up men and throw herself into her career. About the Author Wendy Holden has previously worked for Harpers & Queen, The Sunday Times Style section and Tatler and is currently at the Mail on Sunday. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
