Jane Blanchard Knihy

Maggie, just turned 40, mother of two and wife to Garth, is at a crossroads in her life. She's a secretary at an estate agency with a particularly awful boss but when he sells out to Home Truths, she is promoted and now works at an estate agency with a difference - one which tells its clients the truth about how compact a property is, the damp etc...and her new job does wonders for her confidence and self-worth. At home she begins to be more adventurous too, questioning her family's behaviour and demanding a bit more respect and even risking Garth's wrath by going to a health farm and then a holiday with her friend Pam. As Maggie's marriage goes somewhat downhill, she thinks about what COULD have been if things had gone differently when she was younger. She gets in touch with an old flame of hers - Jake - who has been on her mind recently and discovers their falling out so many years ago had been a misunderstanding - and the fire is still there...But is Jake her true love after all these years - or should she remain loyal to her family...?

WANTED - producers, presenters, technicians, scriptwriters, buyers, office staff to help set up a brand new shopping channel, Getting It. Qualifications: You don't need a sense of humour to work here - you must be crazy. Salary: how low can you go? Stella and Fran are in their early forties and have secret hopes that the channel will brighten up their rather dull lives and catapult them into a new world of show biz. They are delighted when taken on. But it doesn't quite work out like that. Products collapse during live demonstrations, prices given out are wrong, descriptions don't match the products... Complaints pour in both from the public and the statutory bodies. Word gets round, journalists start to pick up the story and viewing figures rocket as people tune in just to see if there are any more bloopers. It becomes a success! However, fame isn't quite what Stella and Fran envisaged and, by the end, they realise they just aren't cut out for that sort of life...

When your wine bar becomes your whine bar it's time to take control... The second time around three women resolve that even fortysomethings should have some fun.

Jane Blanchard is a poet who unapologetically makes use of rhyme and form in her work. Her control of both is very impressive in a most engaging way. -Peter Thabit Jones, editor, The Seventh Quarry Jane Blanchard's most recent work will appeal to any lover of finely crafted not-a-syllable-wasted rhyme. She sifts through the everyday to reveal what deserves our attention. -Lora Zill, editor, Time of Singing Jane Blanchard finds the poetry in the everyday, often taking an apparently unpromising subject and making something individual and special out of it. Her poems are formally varied and always readable. -George Simmers, editor, Snakeskin As always, with this latest collection from Jane Blanchard, I am amazed. Her "love of language" shines and glistens throughout her poems. -Maurice Ferguson, literary editor, Artemis Jane Blanchard turns her inner eye and voice to family and life events, often with tongue firmly in cheek. You will smile in recognition. -Jean Milliken, editor, The Lyric

Jane Blanchard's neatly-crafted verse focuses on daily life, marriage, family, travel, gardens and social conventions. But there is much wry wit, from raccoons to royals, and deft use of such forms as haiku, villanelles and sonnets to make for a pleasingly thoughtful and varied collection. -Jerome Betts, editor of Lighten Up Online Jane Blanchard writes of contemporary concerns in an easy voice that sometimes mutes, sometimes elevates the traditional forms of her verse. Teasing us with strains of T. S. Eliot, her poetry shifts to entice us with the cutting perspicuity and frustrations of a Georgian (as in "Georgia Peach") mother and housewife. Playful, ironic, sophisticated and down-home, this is a collection of metrical insights into the commonplace, with an often uncommon twist. A veritable (and delightful) Forrest Gump box of chocolates. -Paul Schreiber, poetry editor of Two Thirds North Jane Blanchard has a knack for the well-turned line and the perfectly apt detail. This book is a delight, full of poems that sparkle with wit and stick in the memory. -Brooke Clark, editor of The Asses of Parnassus