Paperback Publisher: Faber and Faber
ISBN 0-571-20508-9

Mavis Cheek, photo © L. Ferrante '98

The Sex Life of my Aunt    (2002)

'I had to put a disclaimer in the front of this as one of my Aunts was still alive, in her ‘nineties, and she certainly didn’t want anyone thinking I was writing about her.  My editor at the time hated the name Dilys  - but once a name has stuck, that is who your character becomes.  So Dilys it is, with a wonderful husband, beautiful home and a rags to riches background – and everything is serene in her life until she falls into conversation with a man at a station and he is also – lovely.

As Dilys hurtles towards her destruction or her liberation she discovers that deceit is in the blueprint of our birth, that Ancient Aunts have their own dark secrets and that envious sisters have their reasons.  And that when Brief Encounter meets Basic Instinct the right choice, like truth, is rarely pure and never simple.

This novel comes with a warning.  It has two of the nicest and most seductive of men you may ever meet in fiction…  I fell in love with both of them when I was writing the book.  I hope you will, too.

Lovely home, lovely husband, lovely family: apart from the envy of her less contented sister, everything in Dily's rags-to-riches life is lovely, lovely, lovely. Until the day she meets a man at a railway station who is also - lovely.
As she hurtles towards either her destrucion or her liberation she discovers that deceit is in the blueprint of our birth, that ancient Aunts have their own dark secrets, that envious sisters have their reasons. And that when Brief Encounters meet Basic Instincts, the right choice, like truth, is rarely pure and never simple.'

Reviews:

''Cheek is a marvellous writer whose characters are all beautifully drawn, whose observations on the absurd behaviour of the middle-aged invariably hit the mark and who make you laugh out loud, even as you are wincing with pain.' Daily Mail