NEW RELEASE
It's Up to You, New York - Tess Daly (2013)
Holly Collins is stuck in a telesales job she hates and it seems that nothing better is ever going to come along. That is until she is selected to appear on a reality show searching for the next modelling star. The show offers her the chance to really make something of her life but her boyfriend, James, isn't convinced by the whole reality TV spectacle and even Holly couldn't have predicted the direction her life would take off the back of the show. I was looking forward to reading this book but it wasn't as I had expected. Firstly, only around a third of the novel is set in the New York of the title and it's not really as integral to the story as it would suggest. Secondly, I felt the modelling story was rather rushed and undeveloped. In essence, I felt that the two parts of the story - the modelling show and the New York story - could probably each command their own novels and as such both felt limited. I also found Holly a hugely frustrating character and was never convinced by the question of James' betrayal. Having said all that, this is an easy, girly read, suitable if you're after something light and escapist. But for me there were too many gaps in the narrative. (JC)
Will Holly find love in the city where dreams are made? That's the question faced by the heroine of Tess Daly's It's Up to You New York. The summary says: "Fielding calls from disgruntled customers on a crispbread telesales careline isn't exactly where Holly Collins saw herself in life. Living in a shoebox flat and working in a windowless building on an outer London industrial estate were never quite what she'd had in mind. So when Holly is picked from obscurity to take part in Street Scout, a television series on the hunt for fashion's next big model, life finally seems to be taking a turn for the better for the happy-go-lucky twenty-something. Surely this is her big moment? But Holly knows only too well that dreams are just that and when it feels like everything - and everybody - is conspiring against her, Holly heads for New York with her best friend Meg. The magic of Manhattan has Holly in its grasp: strutting down Fifth Avenue and drinking two too many cosmopolitans, taking romantic carriage rides in Central Park and standing at the top of the Empire State building she can scarcely believe how far away the real world seems. But when Holly is faced with the biggest decision of her life can she make the fairy tale become a reality?" It's Up to You New York is out in May.