NEW RELEASE
Watching Willow Watts - Talli Roland (2011)
When small-town girl Willow Watts is coaxed into dressing up as Marilyn Monroe at the annual Belcherton's summer fair and is videoed singing Happy Birthday Mr President, the only member of the town's tourism board includes her crooning in a YouTube video to showcase the town - with a picture of Marilyn's face floating over Willow in case there is any doubt as to who she is impersonating. Someone makes a comment that the floating image is the ghost of Marilyn and that Willow is Marilyn reincarnate, causing the video to go viral - and before Willow knows what's happening, she's an overnight internet sensation. Fans of Marilyn flood into Belcherton to meet Willow, and when a hot-shot agent tries to lure Willow into signing with him to cash in on her newfound fame, Willow sees his suggestion as a solution to the debt problems her father is facing. Willow decides to embrace her new identity and does her best to become Marilyn - but as she changes, a ghost from her past appears and Willow starts to wonder if just being plain old Willow Watts was so bad after all. If you can get past the implausibility of certain aspects of the plot and take the book as a tongue-in-cheek read, there are plenty of positives in Watching Willow Watts - a fresh and well-thought-out narrative, likeable characters, dry wit and an interesting perspective on overnight fame. (SBB)
Talli Roland's second novel, Watching Willow Watts, is about a girl who is about to find out that fame can cost a fortune. The summary says: "For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father's antique shop and nights watching TV, as the pension-aged residents of Britain's Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits after a viewer spots Marilyn's ghostly image in a frame. Instantly, Willow's town is overrun with fans flocking to see the 'new Marilyn'. Egged on by the villagers - whose shops and businesses are cashing in - Willow embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and ramming herself full of cakes to achieve Marilyn's legendary curves. But when a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village's newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness?" Watching Willow Watts is out as an e-book from September, paperback from November.