Libby Purves

I've just finished reading Love songs and lies, the latest novel by Libby Purves. I have enjoyed her radio programme Midweek, on Radio 4 Wednesdays at 9am for a long time, although Francine Stock is presenting it at the moment - don't think she lets the writers and others have their say in quite the same way as Libby sometimes did. I've followed Ms Purves writing career since reading her first novel Casting Off and have enjoyed most of her books. Casting off is about a middle aged woman sailing away , leaving her husband standing on the quayside, after a marital row. Like all good fiction , there is a happy ending, but with some exciting and dangerous adventures along the way. Many of her other books reveal some of life's major issues - the latest novel brings up the subject of paternity and the consequences of concealing it. I have also chuckled wryly at the descriptions of the chaos family life can sometimes become in even the most well-educated homes, while reading How not to be a perfect mother and its follow-ons. It certainly was an excellent antidote to some of the other baby and child care books at the time, and helped me keep my sanity as a working mother with babies.