Chick lit, so the prevailing wisdom goes, has entered a new phase. Not only have thirty-something males been proclaimed the new singletons, but all that biological-clock angst is deemed a touch passé; the enlightened reader now wants to know what happens after you’ve had your eggs fertilised by the alpha male of your dreams. As one of the characters in Wendy Holden’s The Wives of Bath observes, these days ‘the smart money was on motherhood and nesting’.

The wives of Bath in question are Nice Alice (high-flying lawyer turned aspiring Earth Mother) and Nasty Amanda (baby-hating journalist turned aspiring Yummy Mummy), but the focus of the story is just as much on their husbands: Jake, the eco-warrior, and Hugo, the flash estate agent. Alice and Jake are