Bouncing Back

by Zoë Barnes

Everybody's entitled to a bad day. But Cally Storm's bad day is worse than most. She loses her job, her home, her marriage and her self-respect, all in one fell swoop. At 30, she's back in her mum's spare room, contemplating a dismal future ... until fate takes a hand and forces her to take a job at the local wildlife park. It's a real shock to the system for someone who used to work for an insurance company, and at first Cally's driven to despair by the likes of Colin the skunk, S(a)tan the donkey, and Bob, the laziest zoo-keeper in the world. But there are compensations - notably in the form of Will, her unconventional colleague. If there's such a thing as animal magnetism, Will's sure as heck got it; but he's playing hard to get. And besides, Cally's a married woman ... The only thing is, she hasn't got round to telling Will yet.

Genres: Chick Lit

380 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 29, 2000

About the author

Did you know ...?
Zoë was born near Liverpool, but is a real mixed bag! Her mum is Manx and her dad is from Yorkshire. She now lives in Cheltenham, where her novels are set.
She is also a French translator, and translates novels by Christian Jacq (author of the Ramses series) under the pen-name of Sue Dyson.
She was named 'Secretary of the Year' in 1987, although she wasn't actually working as a secretary at the time!
When not writing or translating, she works as a singer.
At the moment she has three cats: Domino, Pizza and Jupiter. Unfortunately, Jupiter's favourite foods are Sellotape and glue, and he enjoys chewing the corners off library books.
The only animals she really doesn't like are cockroaches. And it's not their fault they're creepy.
She loves chocolate, but it makes her ill. Sadly, green vegetables are perfectly safe. There is no justice.
There is no such thing as a Javanese Yellow Skunk. But there ought to be.

Zoë died on October 30th 2009 after taking an overdose.

Reviews

[Minie Houselook · Rating 5 out of 5]

#coupeDes4Maisons

[Noëlla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a funny book but not the best in its category.

[Kathleen Laurol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pas le meilleur de Zoé Barnes mais très divertissant. Une bouffée de fraîcheur.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just your normal run of the mill chicklit. Stuff happens, but the second you put the book down, you don't remember what happened because it's not important, new or exciting. British, of course. Shit happens, but it all works out in the end. God, I read this book forever ago and I don't remember a thing. Well, according to the recap on Amazon, the boy dumped her and she lost her job. I remember that like she goes to some temp agency that her nemesis from school runs and puts her in these god-awful jobs, but in the end, she ends up liking working at the one at the zoo or something. I don't remember what happens on the man-front, but I assume she ended up with someone.

Grade: C

[Sheree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cally Storm hits rock bottom after losing her husband, her job and her home in the space of 24 hours... not bad for a days work. This is a light-hearted, fun read about a woman getting back on track, turning her life around when everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong. An amusing holiday read, it had me laughing out loud.

[Velvetink]

1 of 25 books bought today for $10 (the lot).

In L's room somewhere.

[Tania Easton]

Its an OK read.

[Kristel]

Globalement banal, malgré quelques moments comiques.