Barker’s flair is for the interplay between characters, particularly the often brutal dynamics between parents, teenagers and small children. Jem, who at 16 is old enough to be appalled by his mother’s increasing detachment, yet young enough to be deeply hurt by his parents’ unravelling marriage, is especially well drawn. And not only does Barker’s prose often ooze delicious sexual tension, but her lush descriptions of a summer garden or a walk in a bluebell wood were enough to make me grab my Barbour.

Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You (Bloomsbury, pp. 312, £10.99) chronicles Sean Thomas’s attempts at internet dating, an idea pitched to him by his magazine editor. Well, it was either that, apparently, or spending the rest of his life ‘eating scotch eggs from Texaco’. From the prologue we know that Thomas ends up on a rooftop struggling to propose to Claire. To find out how he got there you must read another 300 pages of ‘jock’-ular confessional, including ruminations on porn addiction, ex-girlfriends, and anal sex.

It’s a sort of Bridget Jones meets Men Behaving Badly, as told by some chap who thinks he’s the life and soul of the party. Mildly amusing as an article, this exposé of Thomas’s entire psychosexual history is wanky (to use an apposite Thomist adjective) and scarcely credible as a book. Still, my husband laughed out loud, repeatedly. Must be a boy thing. Git-lit, possibly.

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