Join the club if you struggle with baby

It always helps to know you're not alone – but all the other mothers and fathers usually appear to be blissfully happy, and coping really well.

The reality, of course, is that they're all paddling furiously under the calm surface, because that's life as a parent – and that's what The P***ed Off Parents Club is all about.

It's a new novel about first-time mum Roxy, who's struggling to cope with parenthood, and has no family or friends to turn to. So she sets up a club to meet like-minded parents, and The P***ed-Off Parents Club is born.

Roxy's catalogue of woes include not losing her baby weight, having problems with her relationship, and generally feeling fed-up.

So she shares her parenting problems with members of the new club and finds out she's not alone.

Author Mink Elliott, hopes that reading about other parents' struggles might just help real mothers and fathers cope with their own woes.

"If it can help make someone feel as though they're not alone struggling with parenthood – and that they're not a freak if sometimes things don't go as planned and that's OK – then it's got to help," says Mink, a former deputy editor of Practical Parenting.

"It's also got to help if you can have a laugh about it all and come to the conclusion that being ultra-serious, short-tempered and judgmental isn't doing anyone any favours."

Mink, who has a three-year-old daughter with her partner and lives with them in Australia, says she didn't choose the subject of her debut novel – it chose her.

"My frustrations, shortcomings, worries and fears completely consumed me – I was obsessed," she says. "But I figured I couldn't be the only one grappling with all the intense emotions and strong sense of not-being-up-to-the-job that I was."

n The P***ed-Off Parents Club is published by Little Brown, priced 6.99. Available from January 21.