Hilariously funny, wickedly witty, but with a heart of gold and a warmth and wisdom that are all its own, A Second-Hand Husband is Claire Calman’s tour de force.

An uplifting book club read for 2021Four lives are drawn together by long-buried secrets of the past, and it is time for them all to grow up... before it’s too late.
It’s not easy being a grown-up, but at 47, Eleanor hoped she’d be better at it by now…

It should have been the perfect holiday: lazy days with friends in a rambling old house right on the beach. But when one family drops out and Kath invites her brother and father along instead, everything starts to unravel.

Just who do you think you are? Sometimes, it takes a stranger to help you discover another you – the person you were always meant to be...

Four people, one family; four lives, one story; a fresh, original take on the strange yet everyday world of marriage and family life.

Sex. Yes. She remembered that. Wasn’t that the thing that happened somewhere between the talking-and-going-out-to-dinner bit and the sobbing-and-eating-too-many-biscuits bit?