Journalist India Knight had a rapturous reception for her first novel, My Life on a Plate. This successor, a comic tour de force, is just as wickedly funny, and will have readers in stitches at the lustful heroine's repeated attempts to get laid. Stella de la Croix is beautiful, financially secure and lives in a huge house in a respectable part of London. She is also divorced with an adorable toddler, Honey, an ex-husband and a former partner in the wings, and she is only a couple of years short of the big four-0. Stella is desperate for sex - any man will do, a philosophy that leads her to the satin sheets of an artificially tanned plastic surgeon with a scary line in tiger impressions. Stella is not exactly talented in the pulling department, and turns to her lecherous lodger, Frank, for advice. Frank has no problem luring attractive women to his bedroom - the only trouble is they all want to come back for more. Stella regards his sexual shenanigans with amused exasperation; after all, there's no way she could ever be attracted to him as he's far too ginger. He's fantastic with Honey, a great cook, a loyal mate, but that's as far as it goes.... When she's not boning up on seduction strategies under Frank's careful tutelage, Stella is running the gauntlet of the witches at the local playgroup. Delightful little charmers such as Ichabod, who bites, dribbles and fills his nappy with alarming frequency, are exceeded in awfulness only by their PC-mad mothers. Black playdoh and stories about dead mummies are the order of the day, much to Stella's horror. Only Louisa and her son Alexander seem anything like normal, and the two mothers become firm friends. But Stella begins to ask herself some searching questions and the friendship comes under increasing pressure. Knight's novel is an outrageously witty analysis of what every woman needs. She mercilessly mocks the tired shibboleths of the middle classes, opens up the debate about the different sexual needs of men and women and lambasts the prevailing attitude that mothers don't want sex. This is a hilarious novel that tackles modern sexuality in a refreshing, exhilarating way.