From Sunday Times bestseller, and one of the founders of Mother Pukka and the Flex Appeal campaign, Anna Whitehouse, comes an explosive debut novel: Underbelly. Join Anna in conversation for this live event, as she shares the inspiration behind her debut novel, written alongside her husband Matt Farquharson, detailing a life lived online, and slicing through the surface of modern women’s lives to expose the dark truth beneath.

Venue: Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, CM1 1SQ

Date and time: Thursday 9th June, 7.30pm

Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions (Students, Under 27s and Jobseekers)

Box Office: Book online or via Mercury Theatre 01206 573948 (10am – 8pm Tuesday to Saturday)

Underbelly by Anna Whitehouse

UNDERBELLY
[n.] singular
The soft underside or abdomen of a mammal.
An area vulnerable to attack.
A dark, hidden part of society.

Lo and Dylan are living parallel lives, worlds apart.

Lo is the ultimate middle-class mother, all perfectly polished Instagram posts and armchair activism.

Dylan is just about surviving on a zero-hours telemarketing job from her flat, trying to keep food on the table.

But when they meet at the school gates, they are catapulted into each other’s homes and lives – with devastating consequences . . .

Sharply humorous and unflinchingly honest, Underbelly slices through the filtered surface of modern women’s lives to expose the dark truth beneath. This is a tale about friendship, motherhood and what it is really like to be caught between reality and a filtered social media post.

‘This is the first book I’ve read that really captures life online – the satire is so sharp, but the emotional core of the story is so tender and pulsing. This is truly excellent storytelling’ DAISY BUCHANAN

‘Anna and Matt write in their signature style: entertaining and playful but with huge depth, meaning and heart. Underbelly invites us all down the rabbit hole into the wild, weird and sometimes wonderful corners of the Internet. I raced through it’ EMMA GANNON

‘Raced through it; barely breathed in the last few pages This is more than a page-turner, it’s unputdownable, it will stay with you long after the last page. I’ve never read a book that so perfectly encapsulates the complexity – and belly-laughing heart – of female relationships’ CHERRY HEALEY

‘Snort-tea-through-nose funny’ CHERRY HEALEY

‘This book left me laughing so very hard and equally blubbing with tears’ JOOLS OLIVER

Buy a copy of Underbelly from bookshop.org

About the Author

Anna Whitehouse is the fiction-writing pseudonym for Anna Whitehouse and Matt Farquharson. Together, they are the co-authors of Sunday Times bestsellers Parenting the Sh*t Out of Life and Where’s My Happy Ending? They are both journalists, co-founders of the website Mother Pukka and the Flex Appeal campaign to have flexible working enshrined as a legal right for all. Anna also presents a weekly show on Heart Radio. Underbelly is their first novel.