Fold

Five friends. One year. All bets are off. Reading, 2009. It may not be Vegas, but for Nick, Doug, Vijay, Alan and Simon, it's as good as they're going to get. Each in their forties, and beset by anxieties, flaws and frustrations, they meet monthly in each other's houses for a 'friendly' game of poker, enabling Doug to show off his newly-minted wealth, Simon to insist on serving only red wine and goats' cheese and Nick - swimming in a cocktail of envy, fear, bravado and disappointment - to make increasingly desperate attempts to bring an end to his interminable losing streak. While Vijay meticulously records every win and loss on his spreadsheet, and Alan frets about his propensity to break into sweat and his inability to get his wife pregnant, Nick becomes obsessed with the idea of engineering Doug's downfall: Doug, who with his big house, his successful business and his appalling taste is both everything that Nick aspires to and resents. Convinced of the heroic nature of his task, he aims to triumph over Doug in poker, as well as in life, and in doing so he comes into troubling proximity to Sophia, Doug's clever and beautiful wife ... Overwhelmed by the realities of first-time motherhood and disillusioned with the corporate world, Jane trades in her Manolos for nappies, nipple shields and the foot spread of a yeti: a lifestyle choice her man-eating girlfriend, Rachel, thinks is taking retro chic just one step too far. Overwhelmed by the realities of first-time motherhood and disillusioned with the corporate world, Jane trades in her Manolos for nappies, nipple shields and the foot spread of a yeti: a lifestyle choice her man-eating girlfriend, Rachel, thinks is taking retro chic just one step too far. Unlike the lovely Liz, who'd give anything to be in Jane's pram shoes. Desperate to reconnect with the outside world, Jane finds salvation in her local New Mothers Group, a nonagenarian neighbour, and a royal duo of bloggers dedicated to shoes and behind-the-scenes celebrity gossip. Meanwhile, her unlucky-in-love best friend, Fi, thinks she's found THE one - Marco. Should Jane be concerned that Marco is a handsome, intelligent, Italian shoe designer with a passion for teaching his craft to bored housewives? Or that her work-focussed husband is spending increasingly long hours at the office . A heart-warming and timeless tale of the transition from career-girl to new mum, The Shoe Princess's Guide to the Galaxy is a sassy and sparkling debut about one modern woman's attempts to put her best foot forward Bitingly funny, glitteringly dark and bursting with humanity, Fold is a tale of friendship and rivalry, of jokers and kings, and of learning that it's not the hand life deals you, but what you do with it, that counts Do you ever get the feeling that your sparkly red slippers might be sliding over the edge of the yellow brick road? Thirty-something shoe-worshipper Jane Meadows knows it only too well Vijf oude schoolvrienden van in de veertig spelen maandelijks een avondje poker, wat uit de hand loopt als een van de verliezers wraak neemt op een van de winnaars. NL-ZmNBD