Pleasant Vices: the perfect, light-hearted, laugh-out-loud read from bestselling author Judy Astley

Judy Astley

Jun 2011 · Random House

About this ebook

Bestselling author Judy Astley hits the funnybone of contemporary life yet again in this delicious comedy, perfect for fans of Carole Matthews, Jenny Colgan, Lucy Diamond and Milly Johnson

'Fast and fun' -- Woman & Home
'It sparkles with Astley's wry wit' -- Peterborough Evening Telegraph
'Loved reading this book' -- ***** Reader review
'Enjoyed this from beginning to end' -- ***** Reader review
'This is my happy book and I loved it so much I've read it twice' -- ***** Reader review
'Very funny' -- ***** Reader review

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EVERYONE HAS THEIR GUILTY PLEASURES...

The residents of the Close were much concerned with crime - preventing it, that is. With all those out-of-work teenagers on the nearby council estate hanging around, stealing, joy-riding and goodness knows what else, it was just as well that Paul Mathieson was setting up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

Not that the inhabitants of the Close did not have their own little activities, of course, but these were hardly the same thing...

If Jenny and Alan's daughter was caught travelling on the underground without a ticket, and their son was doing a little experimenting with certain substances, and Laura didn't see the need to declare her earnings from hiring out her house to a film crew, and Jenny drove home only just over the legal limit - well, these were quite different matters, not to be compared with what went on in the Estate.

And then there was Jenny's discovery, when she advertised flute lessons, that she could work up quite a nice little earner in a rather unexpected way...

As the leafy London street resounded to the efforts of its citizens to keep crime at bay, Jenny realised that it was her marriage, rather than her property, that needed watching.

About the author

Judy Astley was frequently told off for day-dreaming at her drearily traditional school but has found it to be the ideal training for becoming a writer. There were several false-starts to her career: secretary at an all-male Oxford college (sacked for undisclosable reasons), at an airline (decided, after a crash and a hijacking, that she was safer elsewhere) and as a dress designer (quit before anyone noticed she was adapting Vogue patterns). She spent some years as a parent and as a painter before sensing that the day was approaching when she'd have to go out and get a Proper Job. With a nagging certainty that she was temperamentally unemployable, and desperate to avoid office coffee, having to wear tights every day and missing out on sunny days on Cornish beaches with her daughters, she wrote her first novel, Just for the Summer. She has now had eleven novels published by Black Swan.