NEW RELEASE
The A-List Family - Christina Hopkinson (2014)
Twenty-three-year-old Anna's life hasn't exactly gone to plan. Despite a first-class degree from Oxford, she's struggled for employment, but then she's offered the opportunity to become a tutor to eight-year-old Antigone, super-bright daughter of A-list couple - actress Cally and director Sholto. Theirs is the picture-perfect family, or so it seems from the outside. But Anna soon learns that on the inside it's a very different story. I really enjoyed Hopkinson's approach with this story, which rather than focusing on the A-list couple themselves and the glamour and excess of their world, instead depicts their world as experienced by Anna, offering up a very different view. For me, however, the finale was rather absurd and the subplot with Janey - Cally and Sholto's PA - too distracting. It would have been nice to have seen more of Anna's love life and Antigone's story, too. But it is an undemanding and easy read nevertheless. (JC)
Ever wondered what it would be like working for celebrities? Anna is about to find out in Christina Hopkinson's The A-List Family. The summary says: "Imagine a world where your bikini body has to last all year. Where the paparazzi turn up for the school run. Where EVERYBODY knows your name, though you're only eight years old. Welcome to everyday life in an A-List Family. Newly employed to look after the daughter of a super-rich and famous power couple, Anna is about to find out what life is really like behind the closed doors of celebrity. And she soon starts to wonder: once you're in, can you get out?" The A-List Family is out in May 2014.