Read an extract from Tales From a Honeymoon Hotel

‘Here’s to us,’ Mark says softly. ‘To our honeymoon.’

‘To our honeymoon,’ I echo, the words feeling strange and foreign on my tongue.

 Up till a week or so ago I was a student, taking my final exams, and now I’m a married woman and I’m going to be a mother. It’s ridiculous, impossible. I can’t get my head around it. I’ve promised, in church, to love and cherish this man, in sickness and health, till death do us part, forsaking all others, etc, etc, etc. If I get ideas about walking out on him now, I’ll have the vicar, God and all the angels to reckon with, to say nothing of solicitors. I’d have to give him half my worldly goods, always supposing I had any. What the hell have I done?

I put down my empty glass and go out on to the balcony. The older couple we noticed sitting on the terrace when we arrived are still there. She’s gazing out to sea; he looks like he’s dropped off. Is that what we’ll be like in thirty or forty years’ time – me and Mark? Sitting out our days together, dozing and staring into space? If we’re still together. I put my hands up to my head as I catch myself thinking this, wanting to push the thought back into my brain – push it back and keep it back. I can’t think like this on the day after my wedding, for God’s sake! I’ve done it now. Made the promises. Made up my mind. This is it. Get on with it, girl. Mark’s a lovely guy. He loves me. He’ll look after me. No negative thoughts allowed, not now.

I’ve made a choice, and I have to make it work. I’m not the baby around here any more.

Read an extract from Tales From a Wedding Day

Sam’s wedding day! I can’t believe it’s finally arrived. All the time we’ve been busy with the preparations – the plans, the bookings, the endless, endless lists – I somehow never imagined that when it came to the crunch – when it came to the morning of the Actual Day – I was going to feel like this.

Like what?

Scared? Anxious? Worried that I’m not going to be able to make it perfect?

 ‘It’s not your responsibility,’ said Sam when we were talking about this yesterday. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I never asked you to take all this on your shoulders. You’ve done so much to help me, Abbie. Now just relax and let’s enjoy the day.’

 I’d like to. I really would like to be able to relax and enjoy it all. But how can I, when the bride comes from a family of total nutcases, any one of whom is likely to ruin her day with just a look, a frown in the wrong direction or a couple of ill-chosen words? And then she’ll be upset and I’ll feel like I’ve failed her. It’s no good telling me it’s not my responsibility! It is. She’s my best friend.

….

I sometimes feel like I’m watching the Pattersons acting out their lives like it’s some kind of bizarre TV reality show. I imagine myself touching the screen and finding they’re not real. Not any of them, not even Sam, with her shock of auburn hair and her laughing and her singing and her dancing. Least of all Sam, really. She’s so vibrant, so much somehow, I often wonder how life can even hold her. One day she’ll break right out of it. Right through the screen! But of course, I’ll be there to catch her.

Read an extract from Tales From a Hen Weekend

The fasten seat belt sign has come on, and I can feel the beginning of the descent from the pressure in my ears.
‘We’re there!’’ calls Emily from behind me. ‘We’re coming into Dublin, girls!’
‘Yeah!’ chorus Karen and Suze, who sound like they’ve been hitting the white wine already.
‘Yeah, cool!’
‘Hubblin’, bubblin’ Dublin!’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Lisa, packing her MP3 away in her bag and giving me a quick grin. ‘I feel excited already, and I’m not even the bride!’
‘Bringing back memories?’ I suggest. We went to Edinburgh for her hen weekend. To be honest I don’t remember much about it except for Lisa getting rat-arsed and going on, and on, and on, about how lucky she was to have found Perfect Prick, and how wonderful he was, and how much in love she was, and how wonderful their sex life was, and eventually throwing up at just about the same point that we all felt like it.
‘Your turn now, little sister!’ she says with an unusual gentleness.
My turn to see how pissed I can get in the shortest possible time?
My turn to throw up in the toilets in a city nightclub, stagger home in the early hours wearing a torn, tatty veil, an ‘L’ plate and no shoes, and lie in bed the next day with the worse hangover of my life?
My turn to hang around the necks of my best mates, slop my drink down their clothes, cry and tell them I’ll always love them more than any man?
OK, then: bring it on.