The self-righteous, headstrong lawyering mother has a new and greater challenge. No longer seeking the approval of her successful mother, one of South Africa’s first women judges, Niki is out to find that elusive concept of the ‘work/life’ balance and some real, sustainable solutions.

Her journey takes her deep into feminist philosophies as she struggles to understand the unfolding media-driven drama of the Oscar Pistorius trial while researching issues of ethics in the legal profession. But in between life and children, Niki is also determined to navigate her own way around the new world of print and publishing and connect with her own identity as a writer. How is she going to survive all this?

Something In Between is a light-hearted non-fiction narrative about real issues in a changing world: issues of parenting and the legal profession, tertiary institutions and marriage institutions; issues about the old feminist debate and why it’s still unresolved and some lessons learnt about the world of books and book publishing. A memoir of her last three years and all of it absolutely true.

Dominique is a self-righteous, headstrong lawyer, driven by the unconscious yearning for the approval of her successful mother, a judge, and an intellectually-demanding husband who, while raising four children, comes to the realization that she is, primarily, a mother. Her turmoil is evident from the time her first child is three months old when, thwarted by the demands of an unco-operative baby, she slumps down in the baby-rocker and begins to write. After all, she wasn’t really interested in children before she had one of her own. “I’m not even sure they interested me after I’d had my own,” she confesses.

From Courtroom To Cupcakes is the lighthearted story of her personal crisis: the story of an ordinary mother who finds sanity in writing and recording the endearing conversations of her children as she fetches and carries them to and from school - often while waiting at red robots. Her conflicts follow her while she and her husband temporarily escape the corporate world, seeking a life of undiscovered adventure by travelling overseas with their two young children. But her attempts at finding a ‘balanced life’ are complicated with the advent of baby number three and two years later, baby number four. Mindful of her own mother’s strength and success and the expectations of a patient husband who feels as though he has been misrepresented - believing her to be uncompromisingly career-orientated - it is through her obsessive documentation of it all that she finally comes to terms with the fact that she is, simply, a mother.

Her journey is related in a part-diary, part-narrative style, during which she meticulously scribbles down her reflections and thoughts of events that unfold. The culmination of these observations - honest and mostly humorous though often poignant and challenging of modern-day notions - is ultimately in completing her story which is what she finds most rewarding in her quest for inner peace.