Be My Baby in Aussie Readers

Apr 30, 2017 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-read, 2017-release, arc, aussie-authors, sent-by-publisher, reviewing-by-request, contemporary-fiction

Anna Harding had moved from Adelaide in South Australia to London with her boyfriend Finn five years previously – they were both high-flying career people with no ambitions of having children or changing their lifestyles. Anna’s best friend Helena had remained in Adelaide and they kept in contact regularly. But Anna was deeply shocked when Helena had telephoned her with the news that she was pregnant; AND she wanted Anna to be the baby’s godmother…

Helena had no idea having a newborn to care for ...more

28 likes · Like · see review

Jul 04, 2014 Bree T rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley, romance, kindle-version, arc, chick-lit, contemporary, aww2014

Australian Anna is living the life in London working as a gossip columnist getting scoops on celebrities. She lives with her boyfriend, television presenter Finn Cassidy and the two have been together for years. The only glitch in Anna’s life is the Parcel Nazi next door, who gets irate every time Anna’s newest pair of shoes is delivered to his door when no one is home at her place.

Then Anna’s best friend Helena turns up from Australia with six month old Ivy in tow. Helena is having trouble copi Australian Anna is living the life in London working as a gossip columnist getting scoops on celebrities. She lives with her boyfriend, television presenter Finn Cassidy and the two have been together for years. The only glitch in Anna’s life is the Parcel Nazi next door, who gets irate every time Anna’s newest pair of shoes is delivered to his door when no one is home at her place.

Then Anna’s best friend Helena turns up from Australia with six month old Ivy in tow. Helena is having trouble coping and her solution is to leave Ivy with Anna and take off to Scotland to sort her head out. Anna is left quite literally holding the baby with an unsympathetic and unsupportive partner who is about to nip off to another city for an exciting job. Anna doesn’t know anything about looking after children – it’s not something she’s factored into her life yet. But left with literally no choice than to be a parent to Ivy, she is forced to take a crash course in learning to care for a baby as well as juggling her job, where there is a shark circling looking to take her position every day.

To Anna’s surprise, help comes in the form of Luke the Parcel Nazi – now not quite as angry as he has been in previous interactions. He appears willing to always lend a hand with Ivy and listen to Anna when she’s having a meltdown about whether or not what she’s doing is possibly damaging Ivy. With Helena off in Scotland and staying out of contact and Finn in Belfast doing who only knows what, Luke proves to be a rock Anna needs. When Finn comes back with a crazy proposal, Anna is going to have to sit down and think about what and who she really wants in life.

Lately I have been kind of craving chick-lit/romance stories and I thought this one would be perfect! I ended up reading it in one sitting and although I loved one part of the story (the whole Anna/Finn/Luke/Ivy situation) there’s no denying that the character of Helena made me utterly stabby. I’m a mother – I have 2 kids and although I’m not a single mother I’ve had my times flying solo, my husband works nights and I’ve supported a family member who was a single mother at 17. I get how hard it can be to cope. I get how hard it can be to be isolated. Whilst I applauded Helena for recognising that she wasn’t coping and needed help….the way in which she chose to deal with it, I couldn’t really get on board with. Firstly, turning up on your best friend’s doorstep without even warning her that you’re coming and asking her to take your baby is wrong but secondly, doing a midnight flit leaving with her no supplies and even less clue is….so much worse. I felt so sorry for Anna, it would be incredibly daunting to be handed a baby when you have pretty much no experience with them at all. And for Ivy! At six months, a baby is well able to recognise those in its life… and when people are gone. It’s lucky and also sort of convenient that Ivy copes relatively well with her new surroundings and carer. And I have to admit, I didn’t really see what Helena’s Scotland trip was really doing to be able to help her cope with being a parent to Ivy. There was a bit with an eccentric aunt and some super-swift romance with a young teacher that she met but ultimately the fact that she ran away and then didn’t contact Anna for the longest time made Helena pretty much irredeemable for me. And then when she did return, the first thing she did was attack Anna for not looking after Ivy well enough even though she had absolutely no clue what sort of job Anna had done. She also had no idea the personal cost to Anna of looking after Ivy and when Anna actually told her, she didn’t really seem to care at all. I’m not sure if Helena is supposed to have depression/post-natal depression or is just stressed out and not coping. If it’s the former then it’s resolved far too simplistically and easy.

Fortunately I enjoyed Anna and her drama much more. She’s a flawed character as well, she’s allowed herself to slip into a job she doesn’t really enjoy, ferreting out celebrity secrets and making up what information she can’t get. She’s a bit superficial and shallow but she does really step up when Ivy is left with her. She could’ve called Helena’s parents and demanded they come and take Ivy but she was well aware that Helena’s mother was not supportive and probably wasn’t the best option, although that was something else that wasn’t satisfactorily resolved. Instead Anna rolls up her sleeves, takes some leave from her job and does the best that she can for Ivy utilising one of her friends who is a mother and Luke from next door who has ‘some experience with children’. I loved Luke and I loved the way he and Anna went from sparring neighbours who get off on the wrong foot with each other to friends….and potentially more. Anna and Finn have been experiencing trouble for a while although both of them seem adept at ignoring it and pretending all is fine until he takes a job in Belfast without even bothering to tell her that it’s on the table. Luke becomes Anna’s support and friend and shoulder to cry on and sympathetic ear. I loved Luke – I wish this book had much more Luke and less Finn. The narrative is split 3 ways between Anna, Helena and Finn being a ginormous tool in Belfast struggling to stay firm against the advances of his hot producer. I just wanted to stay with Anna all of the time and find out how things were going for her. Helena’s sojourn to Scotland mostly only made me mad and Finn….well. The less said about him the better!

A fun read – especially watching Anna evolve with Ivy and realise that she doesn’t need Finn (or anyone else really) to validate her existence. I wish there’d been a little more romance with Luke, that did feel a bit rushed at the end but the set up was there. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 08, 2014 Lauredhel rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary, australian-women-writers-challenge, romance, aww2014

Anna has a TV-star boyfriend, a lovely house, and a job amongst the glitterati as a muck-raking gossip columnist in London. Does she 'have it all'? (Is there such a thing?) She seems to have a bafflingly large amount of trouble getting parcels delivered to her house instead of to her grouchy neighbour Luke.

Anna is also a rather reluctant godmother to baby Ivy, who lives in Australia with her best friend Helena.

"‘And in the meantime you’ll be the fabulous London godmother who sends her tiny Ralph

Anna has a TV-star boyfriend, a lovely house, and a job amongst the glitterati as a muck-raking gossip columnist in London. Does she 'have it all'? (Is there such a thing?) She seems to have a bafflingly large amount of trouble getting parcels delivered to her house instead of to her grouchy neighbour Luke.

Anna is also a rather reluctant godmother to baby Ivy, who lives in Australia with her best friend Helena.

"‘And in the meantime you’ll be the fabulous London godmother who sends her tiny Ralph Lauren twin-sets and sparkly Dolce & Gabbana party shoes. But you won’t have to be here to watch her throw up on them.’

Her tone is upbeat but suddenly Helena sounds so far away, so frightened, that I want to cry for her – and kick myself for being so callous. Whatever my own feelings about children may be, they’re no justification for abandoning my best friend.

‘Of course I’ll be her godmother, Hel. I’d be honoured,’ I say, valiantly ignoring the little voice in my head whispering, What are you thinking?"

Anna's world is shaken when Helena turns up on doorstep from Australia, badly underweight and not responding to her baby. Helena leaves Ivy with Anna and Finn in London, and flees to Scotland to a great-aunt she's never met. Anna's sudden child-caring role shakes up her relationships with the men in her life, and helps her realise that first impressions are not always accurate. People surprise her, for good and for ill, and in some ways she surprises herself.

We also see the story from Helena's point of view, as she lobs in to a tiny Scottish village where she knows no-one, feeling depressed, afraid, and guilty. Her journey back to health does involve another romance, so this is a two-for-one book! It's not exactly Magickal Healing Penis, thankfully, though her postnatal depression is resolved a little too quickly and easily for my tastes. Romance novels don't always have to be super-realistic, do they? Do they?

And then there's Finn's point of view, as he racks off to Ireland, continues to be a knob, and attracts similarly unpleasant people. The less said about him, the better. Yes, we spend a fair bit of time in the heads of people who are variably unlikeable and/or flawed, but I can sometimes like that in a book, if there is enough balance. I liked it in this one.

This book manages to somehow be cute and fun, while also tackling issues of adoption, abandonment, abuse, motherhood, breaking up, workplace sexual harassment, and the damage done by paparazzi, without trivialising any of these issues. There is no sugar-coating of what it's like to be parenting a small child, and don't just expect Anna to be somehow "cured" of her childfreeness by caring for a baby - that's not how the world works, and there's nothing wrong with being childfree. I like it that some unpleasant cliches like this one are avoided!

I did have a couple of issues with the book. The first was the multiple POV changes, which I hadn't expected, so I found them a bit head-spinning at first. Now you know about them, so you won't have this problem! The second was the use of the term "Parcel Nazi", which is a pet peeve. (Any trivial use of the word "Nazi" is.)

But overall? Yes! I liked it, a lot.

Content notes: (view spoiler) ...more

Like · see review

Aug 15, 2014 Helene Young rated it really liked it

A wonderful debut written in first person from three different points of view. I enjoyed getting up close and personal with the three characters and Laura Greaves seamlessly weaves their stories together. Plenty of food for thought and an optimistic ending that left me smiling.

Like · see review

From the Bookshelf of Aussie Readers…

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

What Members Thought

Aussie Readers