Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

If you are expecting your first baby then I would suggest you give this novel a good wide swerve as Claire Kilroy takes you right to the messy heart of motherhood with all the tears and sleepless nights that go with it.

If you've already done the baby thing, it's the kind of book that brings it all back, and it's interesting to note that not much has changed over the years. These days you might be able to tap in to Mum's Net at three in the morning, but the bottom line is that you will still be awake at three in the morning and you will never know tiredness like the kind you feel during the first year of your baby's life.

Relationships are tested to breaking point, and never mind discovering the personality of the new life you have produced, you quickly find out a whole lot more about yourself. When you are that tired the gloves are off, and it won't just be the baby that ends up crying. Nothing can ever prepare you for the seismic shift into the world of motherhood.

The good news is that you adapt to the task as the baby grows and much of the drama of the early months is consigned to the back of your brain and the bits you choose to remember are the smiles and your bursting pride at their first steps. I still see the little boys in my own sons even though they are in their forties now and have had babies of their own. In fact I am a great nana now, and youngest member of our family starts school in September, so we get through it all despite the mess we go through in their early months and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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Violeta by Isabel Allende

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