A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

A funny novel that tackles the serious issues of divorce, breast cancer and being stuck in the 'Sandwich Generation'. A warmly humorous novel about an engagingly vulnerable woman who belongs to the Sandwich Generation - sandwiched between the demands of a career, elderly parents, teenagers and a marriage that is on the skids. Running from one crisis to another, Penny Rushmore misses the signs that her husband is about to leave her for a sexy, younger woman and is left bouncing between shoe shops and dreams of revenge. But how far should she go? And how will she find the time? She has no time for work-life balance, no time to read the manuals on coping with difficult teenagers and an increasingly dotty mother, and she especially has no time for breast cancer. But there's nothing like the big C to help sort out what's really important. When life hangs in the balance, decisions about whether to splurge on designer shoes, lose unwanted kilos or find a new fella suddenly don't seem so important any more . . . until he turns up, that is.

Felicity Price is the author of six novels, including the Penny Rushmore trilogy - Split Time (2005), A Sandwich Short of a Picnic (2008) and Head Over Heels (2010) - and a bestselling biography on John Britten, two corporate histories (Lane Walker Rudkin and the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce) and a pictorial history of Tekapo and the Mackenzie Country. She began her writing career at The Press in the 1970s, before moving on to journalism at TVNZ and Radio New Zealand. She has also written for North & South and was a panellist on TVNZ's Beauty and the Beast. Since 1987, Felicity has been running her award-winning public relations company, in partnership with her husband Chris Rennie, with whom she has two children. Price chairs the Court Theatre Trust board and has also chaired the Christchurch Symphony Trust board and the Christchurch Book Festival Trust. In 2009, she was awarded ONZM (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit) in recognition of her services to business and the arts. The Dominion Post described Split Time as: 'Chick lit meets feminism ...and the result is an appealing, readable novel with soul and a social conscience.' The Press noted that, 'Price's breezy style, wry humour and honest portrayal of a modern woman's lot will make this a popular choice for a reader looking for more than a formulaic chick lit.' The NZ Herald wrote: 'The pace is lively, the dialogue peppy, the story eminently readable ... light, entertaining and satisfying.' Both A Sandwich Short of a Picnic and Head Over Heels stayed on the bestseller lists for several months. The Southland Times said of the latter, 'it was an entertaining light read and did keep me turning the pages to see what would happen next'.