The Empty Nesters, By Nina Bell

Having written extensively about family life, popular novelist Nina Bell turns her attention to the empty-nest generation. Like Joanna Trollope, Bell has a knack for identifying issues that will concern her readers, offering fictional solace along the way.

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The menopausal mothers at the heart of her latest novel are about to find out that life without children is no less demanding. Clover Jones and Laura Dangerfield have been close friends since the first school run.

Along with increasingly glamorous single mother, Alice, they've acted as one big clan, sharing holidays, sleepovers and disappointing exam results.

But with the final school assembly over, cracks in their marriages and friendships are cruelly exposed. Hen-lit is a far less cosy place than you might expect.