Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes by Sue Watson

TV producer Stella Weston is over worked, over weight and under fire. Having battled uphill for years to balance her career with her family life, she is repaid by being put out to pasture on a religious gardening programme - complete with a nervous vicar, his nymphomaniac wife, and 22 stone Britney wannabe gardener, Gerald.


In the past, comfort has always been found at the bottom of her mixing bowl but when even the most delicious lemon sponge with zesty frosting cannot save the day, Stella decides enough is enough.


However, finding the courage to quit is sometimes the easy part. Can you really turn a passion into a profession? Does more time at home actually give you a happier family life? Are men truly from Mars or another universe altogether?


Stella has to roll up her sleeves and find out - when the going gets tough, the tough gets baking ....


This book is fantastic!! A great, easy, lighthearted read to relax with and loose a couple of hours with. 


The book is the debut novel for author Sue Watson, a local author to me in Worcestershire and one which I will recommend to everybody wholeheartedly. I wish her a long and prosperous writing career and hope she releases another book soon!


I was captured by the book by the end of the first line. How many books have an opening line like ' "I need sex every day, luv" said Densie, the vicar's wife.' 
and the good lines just keep coming, throughout the book. One book blogger has described it as Bridget Jones meets Nigella Lawson (Lougrahamiiblog ) and I would definitely agree with the Bridget Jones comparison. 


The main character, Stella Watson, is a television producer, who has an awful boss who rubbishes her, and everybody elses, good ideas and later passes them off as her own. Following one such idea, Stella is 'transferred' to the Gardening department and set to work on a programme based around gardens and religion - a show that Stella is unsure of. However, the show means that Stella must live away from home and misses her husband and young daughter, causing problems with her homelife. The first show of the series broadcasts and is full of problems, however the series grows in popularity, leading Stella to believe she will asked to work on the second series, while leaving her some room to bargain terms re less time away from home etc.  However, an oversight in staffing leads to her boss suspending Stella, a problem that her boss may have contributed to, and Stella hands in her resignation with immediate effect.
This could not of come at a worse time for Stella, her husband, Tom, appears distant and always concerned about teh family finances and a secret is revealled on Christmas Eve which leaves Stella's family broken and Stella is left to pick up the pieces. This is one hilarious, yet sad, scene adn I do not want to spoil it for other readers, but a fresh Christmas turkey is involved!


The rest of the book is about Stella's experience in turning her hobby, cake making, into a business and this is definitely not a book to read when you are hungry and have a sweet tooth, the cakes all sound delicious!! It is also about her life in general, getting on with life as a single parent, flirting with possible dates, enjoying being a mum, spending time with her daughter and her friends,  enjoying time for herself when her daughter is with her dad, and trying to carve a name for herself in cake making. A chance meeting with a friend of her daughter's mother who works for a top company leads to a big chance for Stella, along with the help of her friend, Al, another recent victim of Stella's old boss, to really give the business a go.


The book is full of hilarity, many times did I laugh out loud while reading it. It is a book about a women anyone will be able to relate to, knowing someone like Stella or the situation she has been left in. She has great friends; Lizzie and Al are two people I would love to meet. Al's new love interest, Sebastian, is also brilliant.


I hope you can tell how much I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to chick lit lovers everywhere, although be warned, once you start it, you won't want to put it down until you finish it!


Thank you to Rickshaw Publishers for sending me the book to review.