Mad About the Boy

October 21, 2013
England's sweetheart Bridget Jones returns after over a decade in Field's latest novel (after Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason). Bridget, now a single mother to two young children, is trying to catch up with the rest of the world. Just figuring out how to program the remote and her son's X-box is overwhelming enough, but now her friends are pushing her to get back into the dating scene. Determined to stay hip, Bridget is dating Roxster, a man 15 years her junior, who she meets through her trials and errors on Twitter. But juggling motherhood and a new boyfriend, while dealing with producers trying to turn her screenplay from tragedy to comedy may be more than Bridget can handle. Whether she is unintentionally announcing her family's head lice infestation to her production team or getting stuck in a tree while looking after her daughter, fans will find Fielding's third Bridget Jones installment hilarious and thoroughly entertaining. This book is sure to be a hit among new and old readers alike. Fielding's awkwardly charming character has aged wellâbut of course not gracefully.

October 15, 2013
It's been 15 years since readers first met the charmingly insecure Bridget Jones, and 13 since her last adventure in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2000). Bridget is now 51, and, most readers will be chagrined to learn, a widow. She is also raising the two children she had with the now deceased Mark Darcy and gingerly wading back into the dating pool while working on a screenplay. When she joins Twitter, she obsesses about the number of Twitter followers she has the same way she used to agonize over her weight, which does remains a concern. Bridget begins a Twitter flirtation with a sexy guy named Roxster, who turns out to be only 29. Most of the novel is devoted to the ups and downs of their ensuing relationship. It is fun to revisit Bridget and all her neuroses, but the novel is at its best when Fielding focuses on the challenges Bridget faces as a single parent, including her love/hate relationship with one of her son's teachers, rather than on the somewhat unrealistic May-December romance.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The longed-for return of Bridget Jones is supported by a hefty print-run (250,000), a first serial in Vogue, and a major author tour.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2013

If you don't know that Fielding is bringing back her beloved Bridget Jones, the character that sold 15 million copies worldwide and launched a movie franchise, then you've been hiding under a rock for months. The setting is contemporary London, and like all of us Bridget has moved on. No more plot details, but at least the title should be settled by BookExpo America.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 27, 2014
In Fielding’s novel, beloved Bridget Jones is now 51 years old and a widow, raising her two young children alone after the death of husband Mark Darcy. With her signature diary entries and comical obsession with minutiae, Bridget forges ahead into unfamiliar worlds as she uses Twitter, tries to write a screenplay, and dates a sexy “toy boy” 20 years her junior. Narrator Bond is perfect as Bridget, conveying her humorously self-deprecating insecurity, her joyous highs and depressed lows, and all her inevitable comic mishaps and social awkwardness. She also slips easily into a variety of spot-on character voices, including sophisticated Talitha, supercilious Mr. Wallaker (a schoolteacher who turns out to be more than meets the eye), sexy Roxter (the aforementioned toy boy), and Mabel, Bridget’s young daughter. Bond’s brilliant narration will have listeners cheering Bridget on, and makes this audiobook a must-listen. A Knopf hardcover.