Stepping Up: The joyful and emotional Sunday Times bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Adored by readers

The debut novel of a woman who found her place in the world as a blogger! Beth, at the grand old age of 30, still lives at home with her parents and regularly packs in her job – and her current romantic attachment. She is a good time party girl, regularly losing her mornings to hangovers as she slumbers half the day away. Pulling a sickie, she is ensconced cosily in front of the tv when she suddenly finds everyone trying to get in touch with her. The unthinkable has happened; her sister and brother-in-law have been involved in an accident. With Doug dead and Emma in a coma, responsibility for their two children falls to Beth – the aunt who has had very little to do with them. The question is, can she cope? There are a few amusing moments in this book – and a fair amount of tragic ones. Right from the very beginning, I had my expectations of how it was going to play out and had the strange feeling of having read similar novels previously. I found myself often annoyed with Beth – I could have made a better job of enforced parenthood at 14 than she managed to begin with; how can anyone – male or female – reach the age of 30 and be so inept at domesticity? Never mind the fact that, along with Jory, her long-time friend she counted her sister as one of her best friends but didn’t she know anything about her niece and nephew. I know this is fiction, but it did stretch my patience! Overall, it’s a light read. 3.5* from me.

Three and a half stars. Beth is a teenager trapped in a thirty-one year old's body. She still lives at home with her parents, gets wasted during the week, flits from one dead-end job to another, can't be relied upon for anything, and is prone to calling in fake sick to work after a boozy night in the pub with her best mate Jory. March 15th is just such a day, hungover and with a car that won't start Beth calls in sick and then switches her phone off so she doesn't have to speak to her boss while she deletes all the damning evidence of the previous night's 'high jinks' from social media. But the unthinkable has happened, Beth's older sister Emmy and her husband have been involved in a terrible car accident on the M5 motorway, her brother-in-law is dead and her sister is in a coma, their wills stated that Beth was to be the guardian of their fourteen year old daughter Polly and four year old son Ted. How can a woman who can't cook, doesn't know how to use a washing machine, and can't get herself out of bed on time for work, expect to look after two heartbroken children? Sometimes it's the really hard things that make you a grown-up. I was ruminating about this book last night and thinking how some feelings/experiences, like first love, transcend age, it doesn't matter if you are thirteen or eighty reading about first love (especially first heartbreak) really gets you in the feels. Some things however, become less relatable as we get older. So basically I found the concept of a thirty-one year old woman being so completely useless and behaving like a teenager really irritating/off-putting, and I couldn't understand why Jory (who is a responsible adult with his own home and a career as a teacher) still likes Beth or even wants to hang out with her when she gets stupid drunk. However, once I got over the first few chapters I really got interested in the book, how Beth steps up for Polly and Ted (in her own way) and grows into an adult. I think one of the things I liked was that the journey was long with lots of set-backs, there was no eureka moment halfway through where Beth starts batch-cooking food for the freezer or making exquisite fancy dress costumes for Ted, it's all gradual and more believable. My only gripe is that it is all too predictable, of course we know Beth is going to step up in the end, it's in the title, etc, etc. I would be interested in reading other books by this author. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more! Stepping Up by Sarah Turner is pretty special and tugged at my heartstrings. Aunty Beth steps up to look after her teenage niece, Polly and toddler nephew, Ted, following an accident. Over the course of the next year, Beth has to learn how to be a parent, coping with teenage emotions and toddler tantrums, all whilst trying to hold a job down, prove to her Mum that she can be capable of being responsible and also maintaining friendships. I was hooked from the start, and despite the sad moments and difficult situations, I found the book heartwarming but heartbreaking at the same time. It’s been a long time since a story made me laugh and cry on the same page but Stepping Up managed it. There isn’t a character who won’t melt your heart, one way or another, and Beth, in particular, grows in strength and confidence as the book progresses. She realises that perhaps she’s not as useless as she thinks she is and maybe people do need her after all, both colleagues and family and friends. 100% go out and buy this book if you want something easy and entertaining to read, but grab those tissues before you settle down, you’ll need them! Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK/Transworld for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of Stepping Up by Sarah Turner.