#BlogTour Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy by Faye Brann

It's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy by Faye Brann. Winner of the 2020 Comedy Women in Print Prize.

About the Author

Faye grew up in Essex before running away to drama school. She worked in the West End as a stage carpenter but decided to get a 'proper job’, for reasons which are still unclear but may have been influenced by Rachel from Friends. After a decade working her way to the heady heights of middle management, Faye met her husband and moved to Dubai where she ditched corporate life for good in favour of having a baby, performing improvised comedy, and gaining an MA from Falmouth University. 

Now back in London with her family, Faye divides her time between performing in musicals with her local theatre company and working as a freelance copyeditor, but her real passion is for writing novels about (and for) kick-ass middle aged women. Her first novel, Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy, won the Comedy Women in Print Unpublished Prize in 2020. Keep in touch with Faye on Instagram and Twitter @writerfaye

About the book 

Vicky Turnbull has never regretted giving up her career for family life in the suburbs. And apart from being outstandingly good at paintball, no one would ever know that in a past life she was an undercover spy and has been trained to kill a man with her bare hands. Not even her husband, and certainly not the other mums at the school gate.

But beneath the school runs and bake sales, Vicky had never quite said goodbye to the past. So, when a newcomer on the PTA sets alarms bells ringing and MI5 comes calling, she’s determined to prove that despite her expanding waistline and love of pink gin, she’s still every bit the cold-eyed special operative. When the assignment gets uncomfortably close to home, Vicky must decide if she has got what the job takes after all, and if home is really where her heart is…

Review

Nothing unusual about the way Vicky plays paintball - I play that way, just saying. To her fellow players, friends and other parents, well they find her James Bond goes loco with a gun and a bit of paint routine quite entertaining.

Little do they know that the mother of three children and the loving wife, well she has an interesting past. The secret squirrel kind of past. She's a wee bit bored now though, so a part-time job might help to alleviate the boredom or perhaps she should respond to her persistent ex-employers.

I think it goes without saying that this should absolutely be developed into a cosy crime TV series or a hardcore brutal one even. The cosy option would lend itself more to the comedy of the plot though. Planning the school summer fair in the morning and stopping terrorists in their tracks during the afternoon school session, sounds like great fun.

Brann writes the kind of plot that teeters on this curious wishful scenario, which is the reality in Vicky's case. She is the kind of powerful, and yet down-to-earth kind of character everyone likes to read and experience.

Buy Tinker, Tailor, Schoolmum, Spy at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: HarperCollins | pub date 2nd September 2021 | PBO Ebook AUDIO. Buy at Amazon com.