Review: Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot

Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot by Alexis Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Audrey Lane is a journalist. Five years ago Audrey was living in London with her girlfriend, living the dream as a hard-hitting investigative journalist, but it didn't sit well with her and when their relationship crashed and burned, she returned to Shropshire to live near her parents and took a job on Shropshire's second largest regional newspaper. Now her typical day involves 'investigating' increases in parking charges and supermarket trolleys being dumped in the river.

After getting drunk and applying online, Audrey is a contestant on Bake Expectations, a thinly veiled homage to the Great British Bake Off. AS a journalist she is always interested in meeting new people and her personal quirk is wanting to know 'what happened next' so she quickly pigeon-holes her fellow contestants into the stock characters from previous seasons eg the hipster, the tradesman, the mother figure, the overly-precise one etc and realises that they have both the oldest and the youngest ever contestants in this cohort. Doris, the oldest contestant is familiar with the stately home in which the current season is being filmed, she was evacuated there during the war, and Audrey can't help but be fascinated by her story. Unfortunately, the show's producer, Jennifer Hallet is unimpressed by journalists generally and by Audrey specifically and she is very vocal about her mistrust. In fact, Jennifer may well be the most sweary character I have ever read. When Jennifer learns that Audrey has been 'interviewing' Doris she becomes incandescent with rage - is it wrong that Audrey finds that kind of hot?

There is so much here and I don't want to spoil it. But there are (obviously) lots of cheesy innuendos as befits a reality tv show about baking, there's romance, there's heartbreak, there's a lot of swearing, I repeat a lot of swearing, and a wonderful story that just carries you along.

Loved it.

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