The Sparkle Pages

Love Between the Pages: April Book Club

A wonderfully original and heartfelt comic novel about one woman's mission to reignite the passion in her marriage - and rediscover herself.

'Is marriage just a series of texts about where the children are and whether we need milk until one of you dies?'

Susannah Parks – wife, mother, cleaner of surfaces and runner of household – is a viola virtuoso. Except she hasn't picked up a viola for over a decade. She has, however, picked up a lot of Lego, socks, wet towels and other exhibits of mundanity. She has also picked up on the possibility that her husband has lost interest in her. (And frankly, she's not very interested in Susannah Parks either.) But this year, she has resolved to be very interesting. Also thoughtful, useful, cheerful, relevant, self-sufficient, stylish, alluring and intelligent.

In her highly confidential diary, Susannah documents the search for the elusive spark in her marriage, along with all the high and low notes of life with her four beloved children, with her free-spirited (and world famous) best friend Ria, and with Hugh, the man who fills her heart with burning passion and her washing pile with shirts.

And perhaps amid the chaos she might be brave enough to find the missing pieces of herself.

WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE, SEX SCENES AND FANTASIES ABOUT HUSBANDS UNPACKING THE DISHWASHER.

Meg Bignell was a nurse and a weather presenter on the telly before she surrendered to a persistent desire to write. Since then she has been writing almost every day – bits and pieces here and there, either to earn a crust, to get something off her chest or to entertain herself. She has written three short films, mostly because she wanted to do some acting and no one else would cast her. She sings a bit too, occasionally writes and performs cabaret, but is mostly very busy being a mother to three and a wife (to one). She lives with her family on a dairy farm on Tasmania's East Coast.

The Sparkle Pages
Penguin Random House
Author: Meg Bignell
ISBN: 9780143790440
RRP: $32.99