Sometimes Love Isn’t Pretty…

Material Girl

This was my final book for Harper Collins. It’s about a make-up artist and an aging theatre actress. It’s a bit of a love story to the West End. It’s also about the way the world treats women as they get older, and the transition from being visible to invisible, particularly to (not all) men. It’s about beauty as currency. I also broke up with a cheating ex-boyfriend just before I started writing it, so there is that as well. I really loved this book, but it was the last book in my Harper Collins deal. I was told I needed to ‘fluff it up’ a bit. I didn’t know how to do that, so I decided to take a short break (that turned in to a decade of running ad agencies, and not writing books).

What happens when your dreams don’t fit?

The Perfect 10

This book is about the experience of losing a lot of weight, and the way the world treats the fat. Coincidentally I also lost seven stone in a year and, coincidentally, I had also internalised society’s fatphobia, so hated myself and my body for being overweight. Honestly? I did learn that it is a far nicer experience to run fast if you weigh less. I also learnt that the world – a lot of men and ABSOLUTELY a lot of other women – are awful and ugly and just plain horrible to fat people. I now loathe anyone who is disparaging about fat people as much as I loathe people from Kent.

Some things you just shouldn’t share…

Boyfriend in a Dress

This was my messy second album. BIAD is about big city living, and the pace and the money and the stresses that can ruin you if you aren’t careful. It’s about first relationships and mental health, but from a totally un-woke, uninformed perspective (mine at 26). I definitely didn’t consult any of the right charities or organisations before I wrote it, and I fear that shows. Go ahead and judge, I do. In my defence, I was 26 and had to come up with a title for my second book for the Harper Collins contract in one afternoon. There is still some good stuff in there I think, although the front cover is terrible. TERRIBLE. I should have fought them on that one, but you don’t have much say to be honest.

He’s no prince, she’s no princess, and this is no fairytale…

Toasting Eros

This was my first book. It’s an anti-love-story love story. I wrote it when I was 25, and I wanted to call it The Usual. I was told to change it by everyone so instead I picked the very worst title imaginable. I still don’t know what Toasting Eros means, although I THINK I was being clever. What an asshole. Now, given the success of Normal People and Ordinary People, I clearly should have stuck with The Usual. Although obviously Normal People isn’t set in Las Vegas and doesn’t feature as much drunken mini-golf or Barry Manilow and is clearly the worse for it. More people might have watched the TV adaptation if it had, so…