Published By: Macmillan
Pages: 400
Released On: 26/02/2026
How far would you go for a year off work?
Meet Barri Brown. Respected teacher. Upstanding citizen of Guernsey. Down for a bit of law-breaking.
Barri is preparing for a year’s paid maternity leave but there’s a catch. She isn’t pregnant.
With seven foam bumps, a wardrobe full of smock dresses and a great pregnancy heist planned, all Barri has to do is blag it until she can disappear for good, without getting caught and being sent to prison for fraud. Child’s play.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I’d read a number of great depressing books before this and this one just sounded really fun and I was excited to read it.
Barri was a fabulous protagonist. I think we’re meant not to like so much and I did dislike her to begin with but I couldn’t help it, I just fell in love with her. Yes she has her faults as we all do, but she’s just so much fun and I loved her story.
I loved how Barri stood up for women without kids. I don’t want to spoil the book or the ending, but I will say she is quite vocal about women’s rights not to have children, and she stands up to those women who say “but what if you change your mind”, and I think it’s ridiculous that women are still having to defend their choice not to have children. And so she had my respect there.
I mean, morally, it’s a bit questionable, but I still loved her and the story.
I expected it to be light-hearted, fun, frivolous, a kind of silly novel, and it was in parts but it touched on a range of difficult topics that were surprising but it gave the story more gravitas.
Now, about the ending…did I like it? Yes, I think it worked well. However, I did find everything a bit too neat and tidy, I’d have liked to have seen more of the repercussions of everything, it just seemed to gloss over a lot of things.
It did dip a bit in the middle, and got a bit repetitive and felt stagnant and stilted, but I think the rest of the pacing was good and so overall it worked well.
For its positives and its flaws, I read it in one afternoon as it was just so easy to lose myself in.
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