Amy Andrews: What’s a Girl to Do When Her Eggs Start Talking To Her?

When I was first putting Risky Business out there amongst publishers my blurb told them it was a cross between When Harry Met Sally and Look Who’s Talking.

I wanted them to know in one pithy sentence it was an urban, friend’s-to-lovers story and I needed to get across the concept of a book where the heroine’s eggs are talking to her in the kind of shorthand I thought most people would understand.

Anybody who’s ever seen Look Who’s Talking will know the funny inutero scenes where the baby (voiced brilliantly by Bruce Willis) is talking. That’s kind of what happens in Risky Business. The eggs don’t get their own lines per se but Samantha the heroine is very aware of their cheeping, their judgement, their disapproval of her childless existence and their eagerness to divide and multiply. They’re bossy and insistent and poor Sam (driven, organised, career-woman, Sam) is totally gazumped by their strident demands.

Which is kind of how it happens in real life for a lot of women, I think. I certainly know, as I think a lot of us would, women who suddenly, quite out of the blue, are desperate to have a baby. They’re completely hijacked by their biological clock.  Now of course, there are many women (myself included) who have never felt this urge and in fact this book got rejected out of hand by one agent who said as she’d never been through it, she couldn’t relate to Sam at all.

Fair enough. We’re all shaped by our own experiences.

But. That doesn’t, nor should it, negate the fact that for many women, their fertility and having babies is an important issue. 

For Sam, the catalyst for her eggs going all defcon on her is running into her ex and his pregnant wife. An ex who’d never been interested in marriage and babies.

‘Sounds to me that running into Gary tripped your clock. Your eggs have decided it's time to fulfil their biological purpose.’

‘My...eggs?’

‘Sure. If you listen closely, I bet you'll hear them cheeping.’

Cheeping? Crap. That was all she needed — noisy eggs. ‘I don’t have time in my life for cheeping eggs, Bec. How do I make it go away?’

Bec chuckled. ‘Find a man and have some babies.’

‘Impossible. I'm overseeing the Adams account until 2016.’

What follows is, I hope, a light-hearted look at sex, love and the biological demands on a woman’s body.  Of course it’s not all about talking eggs. There’s also a sexy injured extreme sports star hero, a second hand romance bookshop, a quirky urban family and gratuitous lamington scoffing.

Something for everyone really J

For a chance to win a digital copy of Risky Business tell me if a book about a woman desperate for a baby would be a must-read or a rather-gouge-my-eyes out prospect for you? Have you ever been a slave to your biological clock or know any stories from anyone who has?  

***Amy's winner is girlygirlhoosier52!  Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing details!***