I am delighted to be one of the “stops” on day one of the Instagram Launch party for the latest read from Kristen Bailey.
Ms. B kindly granted me a digital copy of “Sex Ed” in exchange for my honest review.
And that is exactly what you will find a bit further down this page following a brief bio of Kristen and a taster for her new book.
Links to where you can purchase “Sex Ed” are given below my review.
The author – Kristen Bailey:
Mother-of-four, gin-drinker, binge-watcher, receipt hoarder, enthusiastic but terrible cook. Kristen also writes. She has had short fiction published in several publications including Mslexia & Riptide.
Her first two novels, “Souper Mum“ and “Second Helpings” were published in 2016.
In 2019, Kristen was long listed in the Comedy Women in Print Prize. She writes women’s fiction and hopes her novels have fresh and funny things to say about modern life, love and family.
You can find out more about Kristen at her website: www.kristenbaileywrites.com
You can also follow Kristen on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
The taster – “Sex Ed”:
Ed is a virgin. I didn’t know those existed – not at our age anyway. Maybe he was so drunk that he forgot all the times he’s had sex. I wish I could get that drunk.
Mia and Ed have been best friends ever since they began teaching at the same school. Ed bakes cake for the staff, Mia eats the cakes. Ed can’t control his students, Mia sorts them out. Mia can’t work the photocopier, Ed shows her how.
Mia’s love life might be chaotic but she’s totally devoted to her super-tidy, cat-owning, geeky but not bad-looking best friend. So, when Mia discovers Ed is still a virgin at twenty-eight, she decides to take matters into her own hands and teach him the skills he needs to seduce the pretty new maths teacher, Caitlin.
It’s an education that involves panic-buying sex toys and buddy-watching porn, and when Ed graduates with an A+ for effort – and begins dating the perfect-on-paper Caitlin – Mia knows her work is done.
But is Caitlin as sweet as she seems? And could Mia’s feelings for Ed be stronger than she realised?
The review:
“Sex Ed” by Kristen Bailey
“FUCK, YEAH!”
I could quite easily began – and end – my book review with those two succinct, and rather emphatic, words as spoken by my most favourite of Kristen Bailey’s characters.
…
…but I won’t.
Because that would be too premature.
And because any new read from the quill (more likely a laptop these days, but I do like to imagine Kristen Bailey penning such funny and filthy lines on parchment using a scratchy nib whose tip she has to constantly dip into a wet pot of ink) of one of my favourite writers deserves something more than a simple “fuck, yeah”. A quickie review just won’t satisy.
This is my seventh visit into Ms. B’s world of mischief and mayhem and this trip has, once again, delighted me. Her writing gives me great pleasure and as long as her world is open to explore then I’ll keep coming.
In “Sex Ed” we are introduced to Mia and Ed, two work colleagues who, on the face of it, are demonstrably at odds with each other. Ed is ordered and orderly, fastidious and fussy while Mia is, simply, chaos personified. Yet these two twenty-something singletons form a solid friendship and trust that leads them into an arrangement that is the meat of this throroughly entertaining story.
The author liberally spreads her own brand of filth and fun throughout the book which, as any prior reader of her work will acknowledge, is one of the things we have come to love about her books; she’s rude, she’s fun, she’s a treat you want more of.
I’ve said it before in my earlier reviews of her books; Kristen’s novels are simply the funniest and most delightful rom-coms you’ll have the pleasure of reading. She creates characters who you warm to immediately and who you root for throughout the tale she weaves, seemingly effortlessly, onto the parchment, sorry page. In short, we care for her characters; we are raised by their ups and devastated by their downs. Being able to craft such tender characters while continuing to insert halarious sexual innuendos and double-entendres into the plot is no mean feat and Ms. B has proven herself to be a very hard act to follow in this regard and is stiff competition for her peers to tackle.
I won’t spoil the fun for anyone but, if you’ve read any of my reviews of Kristen’s earlier “Callaghan Sisters” series, then you’ll be pleased to see a familiar girl appear in this latest book. I was delighted to come upon her again.
In fact, the quote right at the top of this review is just what you’d expect from my most favourite Callaghan girl.
And “Sex Ed” is just what we have come to expect – demand? – from one of the brightest young writer’s in Britain today.
(I hope I have been successful in peppering my review with a heady load of innuendo that is entirely to Ms. B’s taste.)
Gavin Dimmock. Writer. 