Path to true love? Faking it!
SARA LAWRENCE THE FAKE-UP by Justin Myers (Sphere €23.79, 384 pp)
FLO and Dylan are madly in love but struggling financially and live in a tiny hovel.
Her wealthy school friends constantly belittle Dylan and his prospects. Flo’s dream is to make it as a singer, while his is to make it as an actor. Despite working non-stop they both experience rejection after rejection and eventually the sneering takes its toll and they break up.
The heartbreak sets their creativity on fire and soon they are smashing their goals, Flo with chart success and Dylan with a role on a popular TV soap. They never fell out of love, so get back together — but this time keep it secret.
It’s fresh, funny and full of twists and turns.
ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD by Nina Stibbe (Viking €20.99, 384 pp)
STIBBE’S latest darkly comedic novel stars protagonists Susan and Norma.
They have been best friends since 1990 when Norma, a science graduate who has decided she now wants to do an arts degree, starts managing her parents’ haberdashery, where Susan, an undergraduate, has a holiday job.
It soon becomes clear that Norma’s mum has parachuted her in so that Susan can tutor her through the forthcoming university interviews.
On the same day that Susan meets Norma, she also meets boyfriend Roy. Pregnant after only seven months, she marries Roy and drops out of her own graduate course. Norma’s career goes from strength to strength.
It’s not long before she’s got a PhD, a teaching career and a publishing contract — and, as though bestowing a great favour, asks Susan to help with her marking, which sets the tone for the rest of their relationship.
Utterly brilliant on female friendship and how the smallest choices can have far-reaching consequences.
THE NO-SHOW by Beth O’Leary (Quercus €20.99, 400 pp)
IT’S Valentine’s Day and Siobhan, Miranda and Jane all have dates. What they don’t know is that all of them are supposed to be meeting the same man, Joseph Carter.
Siobhan is supposed to be meeting Joseph for breakfast, which is a big step up from their usual no-strings, oncea-month sex in hotel rooms. Miranda has been actually dating Joseph for five months, while Jane considers him a friend and is delighted that he’s agreed to pretend to be her boyfriend at a colleague’s engagement party.
Joseph doesn’t turn up to any of these engagements.
We get to know him through his interactions with these very different women and, although he seems like a lying womaniser, as things unfold it becomes clear there is more to his story than is initially apparent. I raced through it.