Fanny Blake - What Women Want, Women of a Dangerous Age - 2-Book Collection

Praise for Fanny Blake’s What Women Want:

‘ What Women Want is like having a long, funny and fascinating conversation with your very best friends and becoming deeply involved in their lives, families and love affairs’ Penny Vincenzi

‘Women take heart. Here is a novelist who understands exactly the comedy, absurdities and frustrations of your lives’ Elizabeth Buchan

‘A thoughtful, funny and warm read, full of wry and well-observed detail’ Daily Mail

‘It’s amazing to think that this is a debut. The prose is wonderfully bright and crisp, the characterisation brims with life, and the plotting is full of suspense and pace’ Daily Mirror

‘[A] warm, funny read’ Marie Claire

‘Wise, warm, funny and wonderfully observant’ Cathy Kelly

‘Smart, funny, and uncannily like having your mind read’ Rosie Thomas

Praise for Fanny Blake’s Women of a Dangerous Age:

‘Realistic, funny and thoroughly delightful. I loved it’ Katie Fforde

“For all women of a dangerous age, this book is just what the doctor ordered. What an uplifting tale!” Daisy Waugh

‘Fabulous female “buddy lit” … a happy, liberating read’ Daily Mail

‘Here’s a novelist with a delightful, witty take on middle-aged womanhood… A delicious read’ Saga

‘ [An] insightful, funny, addictive read that women will totally understand and men would do well to read in order to learn more about real women today’ lovereading.co.uk

Table of Contents

Title Page Fanny Blake 2-book bundle Fanny Blake

Praise for Fanny Blake Praise for Fanny Blake’s What Women Want: ‘ What Women Want is like having a long, funny and fascinating conversation with your very best friends and becoming deeply involved in their lives, families and love affairs’ Penny Vincenzi ‘Women take heart. Here is a novelist who understands exactly the comedy, absurdities and frustrations of your lives’ Elizabeth Buchan ‘A thoughtful, funny and warm read, full of wry and well-observed detail’ Daily Mail ‘It’s amazing to think that this is a debut. The prose is wonderfully bright and crisp, the characterisation brims with life, and the plotting is full of suspense and pace’ Daily Mirror ‘[A] warm, funny read’ Marie Claire ‘Wise, warm, funny and wonderfully observant’ Cathy Kelly ‘Smart, funny, and uncannily like having your mind read’ Rosie Thomas Praise for Fanny Blake’s Women of a Dangerous Age: ‘Realistic, funny and thoroughly delightful. I loved it’ Katie Fforde “For all women of a dangerous age, this book is just what the doctor ordered. What an uplifting tale!” Daisy Waugh ‘Fabulous female “buddy lit” … a happy, liberating read’ Daily Mail ‘Here’s a novelist with a delightful, witty take on middle-aged womanhood… A delicious read’ Saga ‘ [An] insightful, funny, addictive read that women will totally understand and men would do well to read in order to learn more about real women today’ lovereading.co.uk

What Women Want WHAT WOMEN WANT

Women of a Dangerous Age

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

FANNY BLAKE

What Women Want

Dedication

To Robin, Matt, Nick and Spike

Contents

Cover

Title Page FANNY BLAKE What Women Want

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

‘I’ll get out here, thanks.’

Bea cursed as she stepped out of the taxi into the sweltering chaos of Shaftesbury Avenue. July was always hell in central London. She could feel her trousers sticking to the back of her legs. She was already five minutes late and the traffic had slowed to a virtual standstill. If only her meeting had finished on time, she would have reached the restaurant first, just as she’d planned. She wanted to be sitting calmly, waiting, so that she could size up her lunch date as he crossed the restaurant to join her. But Jade, one of the editorial directors, had made such a fuss about which photograph was used on the jacket of an autobiography by another twenty-something D-list loser of whom Bea had never heard that the meeting had overrun by nearly half an hour.

The summer heat was draped over the London streets like a thick blanket. The slight but insistent throb of a headache was an unpleasant reminder that she had drunk too much the night before. Had she? She tested herself by running through the exact route the taxi had taken home from the party. Mmm. Slightly hazy. As she picked her way through the pedestrians, walking as fast as she could without actually running, she could feel a familiar prickling warmth rising from somewhere in her chest and spreading up into her face, around the back of her neck and down into her arms. Not now, please. She had at least to arrive looking like a woman in control. Like a woman who was desirable. Not like a menopausal wreck.

She slowed down, trying to restore her cool. He – she’d been told his name was Mark Carpenter – must have paid £125 for this date too. That was the deal when you signed up to Let’s Have Lunch, a discreet dating agency for the over-forties. Having been interviewed by a woman in her twenties who, given her immaculate streaked blonde hair, flawless skin and dazzling if vacuous smile, couldn’t have any idea what it was like for someone her mother’s age to be looking for love – or even just sex, Bea wasn’t choosy – you parted with £750 in return for a pitying glance of appraisal and the guarantee of being ‘matched’ with six possible partners. Six! Any of us should be so lucky, thought Bea. Yes, he’d wait. Dwelling on the fact that she was about to rendezvous with a man about whom she knew nothing apart from his name, she almost tripped over a knot of American tourists turning their A—Z s upside down as they tried to match the streets of Soho with the map.

Cantina Italia was just up Frith Street, past all the cafés overflowing into the street with tables occupied by countless young men in white sleeveless T-shirts and girls wearing spaghetti-strap tops. If only she still had the body to carry off so few clothes with such aplomb. That was the trouble with being a few (OK, more than a few) pounds overweight. She still cared about what she looked like so wore clothes to cover up and ended up too hot, unwilling to rid herself of the layers that should be so easy to strip off and reveal all. Oh, where was the ‘longer, leaner, looser’ her that she’d been promised would begin to emerge after only ten Pilates sessions? So far all she’d managed to do was rick her back when attempting a new exercise on the reformer.