Tired and Tested: The Sunday Times Number One bestselling guide to parenthood

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Cara Stringer, née Carmichael, aged 37, is married to Dom, a professional football manager (although elsewhere he is referred to as the assistant head coach, and yes, it is Man United) and consequently they live in a huge house in Cheshire. She still fancies him but he has a secret that blows up her world. Move on two years and she is hell bent on accompanying her friend Jac and more friends on her hen do to Ibiza.

Sophie’s first fiction title has a lot going on- cheating husbands, running from a cult, drug dealers, a murder… but somehow Sophie brings it all together with her characteristic witty and zany sense of humour. Prepare for puns galore! This is a story about friendship and doing whatever it takes to get a friend out of a dark time in their lives. I immediately detested Dom (the weasel) and Cara’s mother is a piece of work too (don’t get me started about Cara’s younger stepsister CA chaotic story that pulls at all the emotions, Sophie’s Mother Hens is the Mums on Tour version of the Inbetweeners. Commenting on this, Sophie says: “When I had the kids, it kind of released that in me. Whereas normally I would be quite relaxed as a person and since I’ve had them, anything to do with any kind of illness, even if it’s just a cold — Nate’s just had a cold — I couldn’t deal with that. He’s so little and he was so snuffly.But it wasn't until a year later when Sophie posted the parody Smell Of You - swapping Ed Sheeran's lyrics about meeting a girl for the mundane life of Tom Hardy-loving, nit-phobic, Dairylea-covered mums - that she started to get attention online. She says: "There is an assumption that I have done something for three minutes on my phone. But I have worked hard writing a script. I appreciate I am not saving lives - but it is hard work." Winner of the 2020 Funny Women Award for Best Comedy Series, her online videos reach a global audience. Tired and Tested: The Wild Ride Into Parenthood is Sophie’s first book and is published by Harper Collins. This was an easy summer read, I think I would enjoyed it more had I been reading on a hot beach rather than a wet gloomy North West town!! They fly into Ibiza and soon arrive at Unicorn Utopia (yup), their sacred spiritual sanctuary in the middle of nowhere. What, no alcohol, someone is surely having a laugh? Er, this isn’t what they bargained for and they to not intend to spend their short time on the island tramping about in nature and contemplating their navels, so they decamp to a very upmarket establishment, where Cara is confronted by the last people on earth she would expect to meet. Her sister and mother. Given they all have a rather delicate history of late, this may not going to turn out well.

I've also been approached by several production companies to write for telly so it's all very exciting." Psst, I have it on good authority I’d fit right in with this crew after showing a friend my favourite quote… The book is pure entertainment; Cara Carmichael's life is absolutely turned upside down by her cheating husband. For reasons I won't share (don't want to give any spoilers!) She's devastated and she her friends drag her to Ibiza for a hen party, her heart just isn't in it.... But then suddenly she's in the middle of a situation she'd never even dreamt of. I enjoyed this book and give it 3.5stars. It’s better than the 3 star books I have read but not quite as good as the 4 star books. It was absolutely hilarious in parts and had me laughing out loud. Not sure I was fully on board with the plot, a mum version of The Hangover, where the hen do does not ho to plan and they have to fix what happened the morning after the night before. There are some great plot twists that I wasn’t expecting! Cara Carmichael’s bestie is finally getting hitched, and she’s over the moon because it means one thing… Whoah, they’re going to Ibiza! Mums on Tour: ditching kids, partners and better judgement for a long-weekend of sun, sea, and sex…y support pants. What could possibly go ‘Pete Tong’?In my earlier dating days I couldn’t find someone I liked enough to share chips and dips with, never mind DNA - so it was a journey.” I can’t get the scene from the plane out of my head. It was Jac that did me in! The vision of Cara with the wipe and Jac’s reaction has taken up residence in my head. I think I’m gonna have to charge rent at this rate.

My mouth dropped open, with an audible ‘No way! I didn’t see that coming!’. The epilogue is a must read, as it puts a lot of problems faced in the book to bed, literally. You will run through a range of emotions reading the book, with more emphasis on laughing out loud. So becareful where you choose to read the book! A Liverpool mum has amassed an army of followers online by creating comedic videos - and she's got an incredibly famous relative. It’s hilarious and outlandish (in all the best ways)! I lost count of the times where I had to put the book down because I was crying with laughter and had to implement emergency kegel manoeuvres to ensure I didn’t have an accident! *sighs* #thestruggleisrealI want people to relate to the ups and the downs of the parenthood journey, but the main thing is that they have a laugh. There might be a bit of a tear jerker in there but I’m hoping the majority of tears will come from laughter!” I think probably what I want people to know is that although my characters are mothers, it’s not necessarily about the day-to-day ins and outs of parenting. Mums are mums, and that’s amazing, but we are also people too and we have lives and our own personalities and we have our own identities. And this is a wee bit of a voyage for these women, who are discovering their identities again and their freedom, away from the kids. There’s a little bit of debauchery along the way. Cara Carmichael’s bestie is getting hitched; but before the wedding comes the all-important hen do. For Cara, this means a long weekend of escapism. A chance to forget about her messy divorce, explosive family feud and monotonous 9-5, but even on holiday, your past has a way of catching up with you…’

Follow the lives and escapades of four life long friends as they embark on the ultimate hedonistic hen party in Ibiza. Leaving behind their children, partners and better judgement for 3 nights of freedom away from motherhood, things do not exactly go to plan. As readers, we get a front row seat to watch their grand plans unravel in spectacular style! I really did enjoy reading Mother Hens and felt that I could not put it down, I needed to know what happens! When reading, you will notice a few dramas that you can see coming and will rightly assume what will happen. However the total spanner in the works comes at Chapter 32!Cara, Jac, Amy and Debs are the Dream Team. From Cara with her nervous colon to Jac with her inside knowledge on HTGAWM add in Queen of the Unfiltered Mouth, Amy (It me!), and rounded off by narcoleptic Debs aka a new mum (aka Miss P is for Power *bleep* #IYKYK). My phone was going off left, right and centre and I started panic-eating crumpets in a corner because all of a sudden I had people following me that I didn't know and I didn't know what to say to them, so it was quite terrifying." A mother-of-two who went viral with an MC Hammer parody of 'I Can't Teach This' has become a number one best selling author with her debut book Tired and Tested:The Wild Ride Into Parenthood. I’m not expecting anyone to come away feeling like they’ve learnt anything from my book, that’s not what it’s about. I would like people to come away feeling maybe 10% better about their own parenting abilities and choices. Hopefully they can read it and think ‘yeah, that happened to me too’ or ‘yeah, I felt really alone and isolated after I had a baby’. Aside from writing content for a UK tour, Sophie says her main goals for the year ahead are to survive teething, get some sleep and spend quality time with her children, particularly Nate.