Seeing Other People

From "My Legendary Girlfriend" to "Turning Forty," Mike Gayle's bestselling novels have taken his millions of readers through many key times for the modern man - friendship, courtship, stag weekends, marriage, work, holidays, significant birthdays - but "The Divorced Dad's Club "is perhaps his most compelling, engaging and bittersweet novel yet. When Joe Clarke writes a feature for his newspaper on the guys called the Divorced Dads' Club, he doesn't think he'll ever see this sorry bunch of losers again. Why would he? He's happily married to Penny, his university sweetheart and he is the father of two lovely children that they both dote upon. Joe has never strayed from his marriage vows . . . until one drunken night which leaves his life in ruins, and Penny showing him the door. He is still in love with Penny and still crazy about his kids, who can't understand why their lives have been turned upside down, but Joe knows he deserves to be cast out into the world of bedsits and baked beans. And it soon becomes clear that as far as Penny is concerned, there is no way back. Joe feels totally alone. And then he bumps into none other than Van, lead singer of West London's most famous Van Halen tribute band and leading light of the Divorced Dads' Club. Could this motley crew of fathers, all in some way separated from their children but determined to support each other, help Joe get back together with Penny and the kids? Not if his first meeting with Penny and her new boyfriend is anything to go by . . . Funny, heart-wrenching and totally page-turning, "The Divorced Dad's Club" is a rollercoaster ride of emotion. By its end, Joe Clarke will be a very different person.