Media Release
Date: Immediate release
New novel lifts the lid on super-rich ‘oneupmumship’
The ultra-competitive world of Supermums – super-rich, super-beautiful and super-mean – is explored in a new satirical novel set in London (the billionaire capital of the world) to be published on June 20th, 2017.
The Beta Mum, Adventures in Alpha-Land is the fiction debut of Isabella Davidson, who was inspired to write the novel after chronicling the lives of Supermums in her successful ongoing blog Notting Hill Yummy Mummy.
The book follows the journey of down-to-earth mother Sophie, who moves from a close-knit Toronto suburb to the high-pressure world of glitzy west London. An outsider, she finds it hard to deal with the competitiveness of the Supermums and their relentless drive to outdo one another.
The book joins a growing trend for fiction and drama about rich-bitch mums, and will appeal to readers of novels like Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (now a TV series), Christie Barlow’s Playground Mother books and fans of movies like Bad Moms.
Isabella said that much of the real-life behaviour she has observed is actually stranger than fiction: “I wanted to capture a flavour of a real-life world where Easter bonnets aren’t home-made, but designed by Philip Treacy. Where mums practice for school sports day like it’s the Olympics and pre-school children are already training up to four times a week for sports like swimming and ice-skating.
“I’m aware of three-year-olds having private tutors to ensure children already know how to read and write before starting school. And parents display Harry Potter books on the dashboards of their cars just to show other parents their child’s reading level.“
Even celebrations meant for the children end up being grounds for competitive behaviour: “Birthday parties are a source of endless competition for the super rich. Five star hotel ballrooms have been a trend for some time. Entire sets are re-created for movie-themed parties. Horses are hired in to pull Cinderella carriages. And I know of one family who flew nearly 20 children to an African safari lodge – aboard private jets.”
The book is set among wealthy enclaves of West London, but Isabella hopes it will be a welcome read for young mothers everywhere who have experienced school gate competitiveness and birthday party ‘oneupmumship’.
While it is written in a breezy, humorous style, The Beta Mum, Adventures in Alpha-Land also has an underlying message about some of the issues faced by young mothers, particularly loneliness, a sense of lost identity and the need for a focus beyond bringing up children.
“Motherhood today is complicated,” said Isabella, who has two children of her own. “There are expectations to have a perfect life: a career, model-like children, and a perfect body to show off through social media.
“That’s dialed up to 11 in West London, which is a wonderful place to live but also contains many driven, motivated and very Alpha people. There is a lot of pressure and this translates into parenting that sometimes goes too far. We can lose a sense of perspective when we become mothers, which leads us to do crazy things. I wrote the book as a way to show how silly this can get – I wanted to make people laugh about it all, because in the end, what we really want is for our kids to be happy.”
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Notes for Editors
Contact: Isabella Davidson
Email: nottinghillyummymummy@hotmail.com
Website: www.nottinghillyummymummy.com
PLEASE NOTE: Review copies, plus images of author and book cover are available on request direct from the author.
The Beta Mum, Adventures in Alpha-Land
Published by Silverwood Books, Bristol
Date: 20th June 2017
Formats: Paperback and E-book
ISBN Nos: ISBN 9781781326527 (paperback) and 9781781326543 (e-book).
Pages: 234
Brief Synopsis: A young mother gets more than she bargained for when her blog about glamorous west-London ‘Super Mums’ goes viral.
Launch Event
Notting Hill Bookshop, June 20th (Contact Isabella Davidson for further details and invitations).
Social Media
Twitter: @NHyummymummy
Instagram: Notting Hill Yummy Mummy
Facebook: Isabella Davidson and Notting Hill Yummy Mummy
Isabella Davidson’s blog Notting Hill Yummy Mummy has been featured in the Times, the Saturday Times Magazine, the Sunday Times Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, the Spectator, the Financial Times and many ezines, including MyBaba Parenting Magazine.
NOTTING HILL MUMMY 