A fine romance
A few of my favourite fictional love stories
My new book Our Song is coming out in exactly ONE MONTH. You may have heard this. In fact, if you know me in real life you have definitely heard this, because worryingly I talk of little else. This weekend I am going into a recording studio to record the two songs at the heart of the book. Because yes, I did write actual songs, not just the lyrics. Now, in the book one of these songs is meant to be so good that it made the hero a massive star and the other song is so amazing that he and the heroine were never able to finish it to their satisfaction. I am not deranged enough to believe that the music I have written is like that. If it was, I myself might be a massively successful musician. BUT if any readers of Our Song would like to know what general musical vibe I had in mind, these songs will be available to stream and, if all goes well, they will be an extra at the end of the audiobook! So, you know, no pressure.
Anyway to distract myself from The Fear that accompanies impending publication, I’m going to recommend some other excellent love stories.
A Perfect Story (Netflix)
I fell totally in love with this Spanish Netflix standalone series when it was released last summer. On paper, the story of Madrid hotel heiress Margot and aimless David, who pretend to be dating to show their exes what they’re missing, could be a trope-filled cliché, but hugely likeable leads, a witty script and some very smart storytelling make A Perfect Story stand out.
As Margot and David become friends and then friends with benefits and then maybe more, the chemistry between them is full of genuine heat. These characters seem to genuinely like each other as well as fancy each other, which makes it all even hotter and made me totally invested in their relationship. I was in floods of tears by the final episode, and the fact that I wasn’t sure if they were going to be sad tears or happy tears until the very last minutes is a testament to how good this series is. Strongly recommended.
The Last Days of Summer by Sarra Manning (Hodder & Stoughton)
Full disclosure: Sarra is a friend of mine and she generously blurbed Our Song. HOWEVER. I was a fan of her writing long before we actually met, so this is a genuinely unbiased paean of praise! In her new book The Last Days of Summer, Cassie has loathed Marc (with good reason) for over a decade, but the fact that they have mutual friends means that they can’t totally avoid each other. When they discover that their friend Russell is seriously ill, Cassie and Marc must present a united front to support him and his wife Lucy. And that means (oh yes) fake dating. Full of heart and heat, this book is a convincing, compelling and witty love story, while never shying away from the darker realities of life. And it takes place in the same universe as many of Sarra’s books, right back to Unsticky (there’s a nice little treat for fans of that book), which I love. Also FYI it’s very hot, to the extent that I felt wrong reading it on the bus, so bear that in mind.
Sidenote: Writing good sex scenes is VERY hard to do, which makes Sarra’s work all the more impressive. All too often authors stumble into deeply unsexy territory full of awkward anatomical detail (“body part A goes into body part B and then body part C does this to body part D”). I am an adult! If I’m reading a novel I do not need every single moment of the physical act described in detail as if you’re explaining the mechanics of sex to an alien who’s never even heard of it before! Give me just enough detail so I know what’s going on and then make it about the vibe and the chemistry and the desire! This does not happen enough.
His Girl Friday
Who can resist characters with chemistry to spare whose bickering clearly (to the audience at least) conceals their deep mutual attraction? Not me, especially when those characters are played by Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Ace journalists Walter (Grant) and Hildy (Russell) might be divorced, and Hildy might be about to give up the newspaper business to marry another man but Walter knows that she’s “a newspaper man” at heart and is determined to win her back for himself and for the paper. It’s fast (SO fast), it’s snappy, it’s funny and Rosalind Russell wears amazing hats. I love it. You can watch it (legally! It’s out of copyright!) right here:
You Are Here by David Nicholls (Sceptre)
Last summer I was visiting my sister in London and we went out dancing at the regular ‘80s night at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney. I had been to this extremely fun club night before and it’s exactly what you would expect from an ‘80s night in a Hackney vintage shop. Were we the only people there who could remember the ‘80s? Definitely! Were we the only people there who were even alive in the ‘80s? Probably! But the crowd was so fun and the vibe and the music was so good that we didn’t care that we were old enough to be the mothers of some of the attendees. By the time we got home around 3am I realised that I had already hit well over 10,000 steps on my Fitbit, purely from dancing. I tumbled into bed and, as I’ve always done even back in the days when I was indulging in many more and much wilder nights out, I picked up my book so I could read a few pages before going to sleep.
I ended up staying awake for another hour until I finished it.
The book was You Are Here by David Nicholls. You mightn’t think a book about two 40-year-olds walking across England would keep you up until after 4am, but this novel was a reminder that a good love story should be as compelling as a thriller. You should want, you should need these characters to be together, or at the very least be happy, so much that you can’t stop reading until you know how they end up. I cared so much about Marnie and Michael that I simply couldn’t bear the idea of them not being okay. I won’t spoil it - we all know David Nicholls has no problem with unhappy or at least bittersweet endings, so this book is not predictable.
VERY SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT FOR CONTENT WARNING. FEEL FREE TO SKIM THE NEXT FEW LINES
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I will say that he explores issues related to infertility which I and plenty of other people can find quite triggering. When I was reading this book I had to ask my husband, who had read it before me, if there was going to be a “miracle baby” at the end, as I often find this narrative trope very upsetting (not least because the implication is “don’t worry, these characters won’t end up like YOU, you failure, that would be a fate worse than death!”). Anyway he reassured me that there is NOT a miracle baby which was actually a massive relief because if there had been I would have had to brace myself or possibly even stop reading. I should also say, if you also find this trope upsetting, or if any specific issues around fertility are triggering for you in fiction, that while Our Song does include infertility issues, there is no pregnancy loss and there is also no miracle baby.
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*END OF SLIGHT SPOILERS/CONTENT WARNING
So those are four very different but all excellent love stories. I will have more recommendations in future newsletters! In the meantime, you can pre-order Our Song from Irish retailers here and from UK indies here. Excitingly (for me, anyway) it will also be out in Australia though I don’t have the local indie links yet. But if you are in Australia and would like to order it, support your favourite local indie shop! Also, the book is available to request on Netgalley, so if you read it there and like it, please leave a review. In fact, if you’ve read it anywhere (legally of course) and enjoyed it, I would massively appreciate it if you could leave a positive review or just a rating on Goodreads or NetGalley or whatever platform you choose (I cunningly saved those urls on a word doc because I am too scared to check out either page).
Oh, and if you’re in Ireland, I will be talking about romcoms, second chances and the risks of inter-band romance with the great Sinéad Moriarty at the Dalkey Book Festival on June 14th and you can get tickets here. Do come along, it’ll be fun! Unless I’ve had a total publication-fear-triggered nervous breakdown by then, and in that case I suppose it’ll be morbidly fascinating? Anyway, join us!