Desiring Cairo - Louisa Young

The sparky, funny sequel to Louisa Young's acclaimed first novel of belly-dancing, motorbikes and single-parenthood, Baby Love.

• Baby Love - a great critical success for Flamingo - introduced us to Angeline, the ex-bellydancer, ex-biker, now single mother of a little girl who isn't really her child. Her hair-raising encounters with the insane but glamorous Eddie, Harry, the lover turned cop and her eccentric entourage of female friends and their offspring made for a wonderfully entertaining and page-turning read.
• At the end of that novel various crucial questions remained unanswered: who was Lily's real father? What would happen between Angeline and Harry? Was Eddie gone for good? In this sequel, which is carefully crafted so that it will stand alone too, Louisa takes up the story several years on and weaves us into a tale that is richer, sexier, more moving and just as exciting as the first.
• Shifting between Shepherd's Bush and Cairo, full of the contrasts between the West and the Middle East, it does, in the end, answer all the unanswered questions while, like Baby Love, making us think and feel deeply about the love between mother and child, man and woman, friend and friend. All in all a great read.