Archive for April 23rd, 2010

The Churchminster residents are thrilled when a glamorous film crew descends on their quiet village. But with just four months to prepare for the final of the ‘Britain’s Best Village Competition’, the chaotic filming schedule may do more damage than good. Meanwhile Camilla grows suspicious of the attention boyfriend Jed is receiving from the film’s demanding leading lady. And younger sister Calypso has caught the penetrating eye of dashing leading man ‘Rafe Wolfe’. Brim-full with lavish garden parties, illicit affairs, sordid shenanigans and a sneaky bit of sabotage, not to mention a spot of fund-raising with ‘Churchminster’s Got Talent!

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I was a huge fan of the Anna McPartlin book I read earlier this year, Pack Up The Moon. So much so that I set out to get all of Anna’s other books. I now have all of them sitting on my shelf, bar her latest release So What If ‘m Broken. So when I was scouting around for new book news I was thrilled to find Penguin would be releasing So What If I’m Broken (aka Alexandra, Gone in the USA) in October 2010 with the new title of The One I Love. I’m not a huge fan of the cover - I prefer the cover for No Way To Say Goodbye - but I’ll still be buying the book. Here’s the synopsis:

Once Jane and Alexandra were inseparable; sharing secrets, stolen booze and big dreams for the future. But when Jane got pregnant at seventeen, they drifted apart.

Seventeen years later, Jane discovers Alexandra has disappeared and she has no choice but to be there for her old friend one more time. With her sister, Elle, and Leslie, a reclusive computer expert, Jane sets about helping Alexandra’s broken-hearted husband to find his wife. But in searching for Alexandra these three women are about to confront themselves. Jane has to figure out how to stop trying to control the world and start caring for herself for a change. Devil-may-care Elle has to recognize the existence of limits. And Leslie must get to grips with a bewildering new desire to live life to the full. As for Alexandra’s husband, Tom, well he just has to figure out what to do if they can’t find his wife. Four fractured people come together accidentally and in one another they find strength, friendship – and even the beginnings of hope . . .

I wasn’t a huge fan of Amy Huberman’s debut novel Hello, Heartbreak and thought it was only OK. I also wasn’t a fan of the cover so I was pleased to come across the new paperback cover which is due out in July (right). It’s tons better, don’t you agree?

Twenty something Izzy is fed up. She has split with boyfriend Cian, the dirty love cheat, and is sick of her job as a dogsbody at film company Lights, Camera, Action. If she was paid to write the script of her so-called life (working title: “Welcome to Dumpsville”) it would definitely not include: baggy tracksuit bottoms and dread locked hair; her flatmate’s ever-present lump of a boyfriend watching everlasting football matches on the living-room TV; ill-advised booty calls; panicky pregnancy tests; and, bumping into Cian and his new squeeze, Brenda, while looking like something the cat spat up. It definitely would include: sleek hair, sleek limbs (come to think of it, more-or-less sleek everything); a Jaffa Cake-eating rabbit called Dermot; a foul-mouthed gran with a heart of gold; Jonathan-absolute-total-ride-Cunningham And, of course…; a girl’s best friend, Gavin. Since real life in Dumpsville is way weirder than anything she could make up, all Izzy can do is take a deep breath and hang in there…