‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a visa must be in want of a wife'.

‘No Sex in the City’ is the cleverly titled, absorbing first adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah’s that explores the relationship of four female friends in a totally non ‘Sex and the City’ kind of way, and firmly enters the chick-lit genre with aplomb.

The compelling and witty protagonist Esma is an Australian woman of Turkish descent, a ‘twenty-eight-year old non-drinking virgin who is open to the idea of a blind date organised by family.’ Esma weathers a series of woeful arranged meetings under the watchful eye of her obsessive mother, who has a paranoid fear of her daughter’s spinsterhood that would challenge the most patient of us.

There’s the suitor that probes, ‘You speak the Turkish? I love cooking and the bitch.’ ‘The beach?’.

‘Yes, the bitch’.

Followed by the socially savvy, modern man who knows what every woman wants after marriage, ‘My parents have extended the house for when my wife moves in. It’s fully equipped with plasma TV and surround sound. But no kitchen, obviously. Dinner is always with the family'.

And the intangible manifestation of halitosis, ‘You’re talking to a guy on the phone. The conversation is going beautifully, until you hear the flush of a toilet'.

This is a refreshing, entertaining and utterly delightful page turner. It’s laugh out loud funny- sorry, LOL funny. After all, we’ve all been there. Well every Asian girl has. Yet despite the rife undesirables, Esma is optimistic in her pursuit of love, happiness and marriage, albeit in a culturally induced, non-physical manner, no kissing, no touching, and as depicted by the title, most certainly no sex.

Esma embodies the candid sentiments that any single woman in her late 20’s can empathise with, ‘I can’t handle these three things: being forced to watch the unedited version of a wedding. Being subjected to hours of baby talk.

Being told I haven’t found love because I’m too fussy.’ Words that are universally familiar to both single women and men alike.

We can all relate to Esma’s hilarious trials and tribulations. There’s the guy with the astonishing lack of panache who told Esma he couldn’t marry her, ‘because he had an ideal image of what his future wife’s physique would be and mine didn’t match up to it.’ This compulsive page turner explores other characters that follow similarly unpleasant trajectories.

There’s the new mother whose husband ‘had the gall to come home the other day all excited that he’d bought me some herbal tablets. He thinks it will help me with my low libido.’ Aren’t men smart?

These musings are echoed by Esma’s weary but sympathetic father who rather aptly sums up every rejected girls broken-hearted emotions, ‘Sparks and clicks and lightening bolts! What to do with this stupid generation?.

They want to go into cardiac arrest just to feel a sign that they’ve made the right decision. It’s because they’re gutless. The men nowadays are gutless!’ Hear hear.

This utterly convincing and poignant narrative is a must read, kick-arse, sassy, summer book which proves that Esma lives in all of us.

And some final parting (and incredibly apt) advice given by another newly married friend, ‘Men are just born lazier and hornier than women. So don’t get into marriage with any false expectations.’ Superb.

‘No Sex in the City’ by Randa Abdel-Fattah is published by Saqi Books, £7.99