Product Description

Your home should be somewhere you look forward to spending time. It should be a haven from the stresses of the world. You should be proud to have your friends round for dinner and they should leave impressed by your comfortable, clean, homely home. Nowadays, we don't all have the time or energy to make the most of our homes. But with a little help from Anthea, the queen of clean, you too can have a beautiful, clean and comfortable home to be truly proud of. With tips on everything from decluttering to dry cleaning, storage solutions to spring cleaning, dinner parties to brunches, this is an indispensable guide. There are simple lessons on each aspect of home making from cleaning to ironing to washing to tidying as well as top tips on entertaining. You will learn to entertain in style, with little effort and cost. Whether you're a housewife, or a young professional or student just setting up home, the Perfect Housewife has helpful hints to get you organised. You can save time and energy and turn your house into a home with Anthea Turner!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8871 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-29
• Released on: 2007-03-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

From the Back Cover
Discover the secrets of impeccable entertaining and make your parties the hottest ticket in town.

Entertaining can be a headache. All that preparation and planning, budgeting, shopping and inviting . . . and that’s before your guests have even arrived!

Luckily, Perfect Housewife, Anthea Turner, is on hand to take the stress out of entertaining. Whether you’re planning a formal dinner or a delicious buffet, a sophisticated picnic or a kids’ Halloween party, a themed birthday or a summer barbeque, you’ll find all the tips you need to organise fabulous functions – without the fear.

Learn the art of preparation, sending invitations, devising menus, drinks and themes. Feel confident tackling any kind of celebration, whatever your budget.

Entertain in Style – the follow-up to the successful How to Be the Perfect Housewife and tie-in to the hit TV series Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife – has all the helpful hints and inspiring ideas you need to create an exceptional event with ease, enjoyment and flawless style.

About the Author
Anthea Turner is a Domestic Goddess. With a 15 year track record of TV presenting including a stint on Blue Peter, Anthea is a household name. She is the host of the highly addictive Perfect Housewife on BBC and is an inspiration to women up and down the country. This is her first reference book.

Customer Reviews

Where's Anthea?
As a fan of the accompanying tv series I was eagerly anticipating this book. Can't knock the content, and it covers the whole range of 'homemaker' skills covered by the series, so gives much more information than on how to clean. However, I was disappointed that there weren't any photos, either of the domestic marvel herself, or more importantly of some of the clever hints and tips she demonstrates. I want to see her t-shirt folding trick and towel folding technique again!

Anthea comes clean!
I was very eager to buy the book, because having watched and thoroughly enjoyed both the BBC3 series, I thought it would be great to have all Anthea's little tips, ideas and routines in written form. I was particularly interested in household cleaning recipes, wanting to avoid and reduce as much as possible the chemicals I brought into the home. She does give you her top 10 for an envioronmentally friendly cleaning kit and one recipe for her ultimate grimebuster, but I thought there would be a few more. The book has 19 lessons, covering everything from decluttering to entertaining, shopping to children and pets, removing stains to organising your paperwork. They are lessons with lots of tips, and some suggestions for routines you could follow. Anthea does make it clear at the start of the book, that having a nice home doesn't have anything to do with wealth, but with making the best of what you have, hence the load of tips for you to pick and choose from. There are no illustrations (just little decorative pictures) but perhaps it doesn't need any. While it was a good read, I found it did not galvanise me into action as much as watching the TV series did, where I could see the transformation of someone's home before my eyes, and which inspired me to go and do likewise. However, quite a few of tips I've asterisked as I want to try those out. I think it would be a great book to give to someone new to homemaking, and perhaps someone new to homemaking would give it more stars. Nevertheless, I'm quite old at homemaking but there was still plenty in there to tickle my taste buds. It's still worth the buy and I intend to keep it and follow many of Anthea's suggestions. (You know, on second thoughts, perhaps I should have given it 4 stars.)

Great Practical book, with great housekeeping tips
I bought this book to give to my daughter for no other reason than she has just moved into her own home and loves the colour Pink, I had never been a big Anthea Fan, I found her 'too girlie' for my personal tastes.... So imagine my suprise when reading through the book I found it to be practical, she obviously does her own housework, and obviously puts thought into things, because a lot of her tips are really intelligent 'why didn't I think of that type tips'..... I look at the woman with a whole new admiration, this really is a very good book