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GORGEOUS.

She's sexy, brassy, forty-eight and in her prime. Mrs Rita Swales, owner of a successful housesitting agency in the Midland town of Cranley, has come a long way from an impoverished youth and the drudgery of mothering four sons. With an ardent suitor wrapped round her plump little finger, the only fly in her ointment is her husband Collis, still malingering after an industrial accident. Thus the day of Rita's party for her agency's fifth anniversary becomes the day of reckoning for her life - will she stay true to her past, or grasp all that the future offers?

Published 1999, by Sceptre. ISBN 0-340-73969-X.

"A witty, acerbic, raunchy first novel." EXPRESS

"Bryan writes with sensual precision and jaunty assurance in crisp, lively prose." OBSERVER

"The book positively throbs with Rita's earthy energy... Bryan handles with assurance a wide range of narrative voices and stylistic devices that never slow the pace." TIMES

"I loved it... It is real, it doesn't fudge things, and yet it also manages to be funny." Margaret Forster