TO DO LIST 1) Buy hummus 2) Pay Pilates teacher 3) Find prostitute for son...

When it comes to sex, even the best laid plans come unstuck in the stickiest way possible

As a crossword-addicted English teacher, Lucy never expected to be arrested for kerb-crawling. But her autistic twenty-year-old son Merlin is desperate to lose his virginity, and a prostitute seems like the only option . . . only Lucy picks up an undercover policewoman instead.

Let off with a suspended sentence, Lucy resigns herself to the fact that her son will never have sex, let alone find love until the morning she miraculously discovers Merlin in bed with a girl.

But is tough, tattooed Kayleigh just taking Merlin for a ride? If so, why? And what has brought Lucys snake of an ex-husband wriggling back into their lives?

As all her best laid plans for Merlins happiness chaotically unravel, will Lucy ever be able to cut her sons psychological umbilical cord and start to live her own life? And will the funny, quirky and marvellously magical Merlin ever find real love?

With plenty of comic twists and emotional turns, Kathy Lettes riotous yet heartrending novel tackles the taboo subject of sex for the differently abled and shows us that when it comes to sex, we all have special needs

Kathy Letteis a celebrated and outspoken comic writer who has an inimitable take on serious current issues. She is one of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism, paving the way for Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham.

She first achieved succès de scandale as a teenager with the novelPuberty Blues, which was made into a major film and a TV mini-series. After several years as a newspaper columnist and TV sitcom writer in America and Australia, shes written 11 international bestsellers in her characteristic witty voice, includingMad Cows, How to Kill Your Husband - and Other Handy Household Hints(staged by the Victorian opera) andThe Boy Who Fell to Earth. She is known for her regular appearances on BBC and Sky news programmes. She is an ambassador for Women and Children First, Plan International, the White Ribbon Alliance and the NAS.

Kathy Lette lives in London with her husband and two children, and can often be found at The Savoy drinking a cocktail named after her. Kathy is an autodidact (a word she taught herself) but in 2010, received an honorary doctorate from Southampton Solent University.