The Staycation, an all-new laugh-out-loud story of fun and a holiday escape close to home by USA Today bestselling author Michele Gorman is out now!

Two families. One canceled flight. And a last-minute house swap…

Things get desperate for strangers Harriet and Sophie when they become stranded with their families in Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Each woman has her own reason for really really really needing the family holiday they’ve anticipated for months. But Iceland’s volcano has other plans for them. When their flights are canceled, the families swap houses and discover that sometimes the best things in life happen close to home.

This ash cloud has a silver lining, even if no one can quite see it yet.

Download your copy today!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/353RPtT
Apple Books: https://apple.co/2KFdTBm
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/thestaycation
Nook: https://bit.ly/2Kkl1mv
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2yAFYHa
Google Play: https://bit.ly/2VqJBso

Add THE STAYCATION to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3eGuYsw

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Dogs smelled, and they sniffed crotches and licked their bits and breathed their bitty breath into your face. She didn’t actually know what kind of dog it was, but she was sure it did all of those things.

 

Your crown is crooked, drama queen…

 

There were enough scented candles to light a Roman Catholic Mass, but not one had been lit anywhere in the house. Someone was either romantically optimistic or had a friend who thought their house could use the extra fragrance.

 

How wonderful to be a bird, she thought. Except for catching live rodents and tearing them up into little pieces for dinner and living on top of the whole family in a cramped nest. Still, the flying would be nice.

 

‘I loved having babies, the way they’re so warm and snuggly. I craved the feeling, the smell.’ ‘That’s just the hormones your body makes so you don’t eat your baby,’ Harriet said.

My Review:

 

Michele Gorman is a wickedly clever, highly observant, and insightful lexicographer. I adore her wry humor and perceptive storytelling, she weaves quite an amusing tale with red herrings and unexpected tricks thrown in for added kicks. I cringed, gnashed my teeth, and giggle-snorted my way through this engaging story featuring vastly different women.

 

Harriet and Sophie were polar opposites in most ways, although they were both going through a similar period of adjustment and significant marital concerns while away from home during a much-needed vacation. Harriet was controlling, rigid, uptight, impatient, selfish, thoughtlessly insensitive and blunt, painfully and obnoxiously OCD and mostly like also a high functioning Aspergers. Sophie was easy-going, loosely organized, and eager to please.   I enjoyed the dichotomy although Harriet was difficult for me to appreciate as well as being uncomfortably familiar as she was a judgmental cold fish with limited social skills and not someone I would choose to spend time with as I had already suffered this unfortunate fate during my first eighteen years of life. Yet Ms. Gorman tricked me into caring for and about her, which is a testament to her mad skills.

 

 

Excerpt

‘Do you really have to do that?’ Harriet glared, first at the nose, then at her husband attached to it. It was a fine one, as noses went. She’d probably adored it when they were young and in love, even paid it cutesy compliments. Now she wanted to fill it with the entire pot of muesli yogurt he was eating and watch it set like the quick-dry grout she’d used on the bathroom tiles last month.

‘Do what, my darling?’ James’s smile beamed with pure adoration. Sod that Leo DiCaprio. She’d nominate James for an Oscar any day. The winner of this year’s Best Performance by a Husband in a Dicey Marriage category is: James Cooper, for the third year in a row!

‘That. Your nose is whistling.’ She could hear it wheezing over the announcement of another flight cancellation. Athens, this time. ‘It’s annoying.’

‘My breathing annoys you?’

‘You’re free to breathe, James. Just do it quietly.’

He shared a look with their daughter over the mountain of hand luggage on Harriet’s lap.

Billie wouldn’t tear her eyes from that bloody phone if Harriet’s knickers were on fire, but for her dad? She was sympathy personified.

‘Oh, don’t you start too,’ Harriet warned her.

Billie saluted, though her eyes drifted back to her screen. ‘Not breathing, sir, sorry, sir.’

‘Can you at least listen for an announcement instead of obsessing over your phone. Who are you emailing anyway?’

‘Pfft. Emailing. Mum, you’re ancient.’

James pointed his chin at the Departures board. ‘We can see what’s happening. Same thing that’s been happening since we got here. It’s delayed. They’re all delayed. Even you can’t do anything about that, so why not just relax? Besides, I’m sure with your hearing you’d pick up any announcements dead easy.’

‘If your breathing doesn’t drown it out.’ She scanned the board. The Budapest flight was still showing a gate. That would be promising, if they were going there instead of Rome. ‘Bloody ash cloud. Bloody volcano,’ she mumbled.

James smiled at her. ‘I wish I had a quid for every time that thing erupted.’

‘You’d have three quid in the last two hundred years. I wouldn’t make it your retirement plan. Best stick to your goats, Bill Gates.’

‘This is fun,’ Billie said. ‘No, really, can we go on holiday together all the time?’

Harriet crossed her arms – not easy with a lap full of luggage – closed her eyes and tried to imagine being in Rome already. Apparently being happy and content was all in the mind. What was it again? Mindfulness? No, it was the other bollocks. Positive visualisation. That was it.

Breathing deeply, Harriet imagined all the whingeing was the happy buzz of fellow travellers savouring their coffee in an ancient cobbled square near the River Tiber. The algae-tinged scent of the water tumbled over garlicky cooking smells as they wafted from the al fresco restaurants. Those weren’t passenger announcements but the distant zooming of the Vespas that carried Romans, young and old, about their business in the sun-drenched city. She could almost taste the delicate almondy crumbliness of the biscotti as she lifted it, after a perfect dunk, from her steaming cappuccino. Her film star glasses shielded her eyes but she could feel the sun warming her hair, picking out the highlights she’d begrudgingly paid over a hundred quid for. The knicker-squirmingly gorgeous man who’d been giving her bedroom eyes from the next table leaned over and said—

‘Mum, I’m hungry. And crampy. I need something to eat. Have you got any paracetamol?’

Was it too much to ask for two minutes of la dolce vita in peace?

Meet Michele Gorman:

Michele writes comedies packed with lots of heart, best friends, and girl power. She is both a Sunday Times and a USA Today bestselling author, raised in the US, and living with her husband in London. Michele also writes cozy comedies under the pen-name, Lilly Bartlett. Lilly’s books are full of warmth, quirky characters, and guaranteed happily-ever-afters.

Connect with Michele:
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2SbvGof
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3eGzuHl
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Kl0VIO
BookBub: https://bit.ly/2XSbcEs
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3bumYc0
Website: http://www.michelegorman.co.uk/