Description: A young British author making her American debut, Raffaella Barker has written a funny, exuberant novel in diary form about a recent divorcee who finds herself marooned in the countryside, surrounded by clutter, children, and animals -- including a few too many of the fowl that inspire the book's title, Hens Dancing. "When I wrote this fictional diary of a single mother, I wanted to celebrate the state of motherhood even when it occurs in a lopsided family, to illustrate the precious, hard-won sense of freedom and happiness that an escape from a damaging marriage can bring". The novel's heroine, Venetia Summers, is, Barker explains, "a strong if chaotic woman, not afraid to admit her failings, but able to laugh at them".

A columnist for England's Country Life magazine, Barker has a remarkable ability to write about rural living, and her book is about not only a family but the world it inhabits. Inspired by the English classic Diary of a Provincial Lady, Hens Dancing is "the diary of a millennial provincial lady, and is to be read for the detail and minutiae of family life. It will not change your life", the author admits, "but it may reflect it".

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