[WARNING:
SPOILER ALERT]
If you want to read
about publishing, this is the book. If you want to read about writing (or
rather, the process of ghost-writing an autobiography), this is the book. If
you want to read about somewhere based in Italy and/or London, this is the
book.
Alice
Roberts worked at a publishing house in London, and one of the projects her
department was assigned to was writing an autobiography for an American actor,
Luther Carson. The actor was by no means ageing nor dying. But his short
marriage and hiatus from acting brought interest to his life. When the
ghost-writer who stayed with Luther in Italy came to no significant progress on
the book, Alice was given an assignment by her reluctant boss to help convince
Luther to help write the book.
Alice
went out with a guy for two months, who then ghosted her and terminated the
“relationship” after a long silent treatment. It made her question if there was
even a “relationship” to begin with. So the trip to Italy was the break from
London life she didn’t realise she needed. She was starting to day-dream about
getting into a relationship with her actor crush, and imagining her
ex-(sort-of) boyfriend getting jealous and wishing he hadn’t dump her.
The
reality she was met was far from her imagination. Luther Carson, while
expressing his intent to wanting to write the book, kept putting it off. He
kept going out on his friend’s yacht at daytime, going out to dinner and clubs
at night time. When asked about writing the book, he was going with the
“party first, work later” approach. No wonder the ghost-writer had trouble
writing the manuscript. Alice was hounded with deadlines by her boss, who
already thought she was not a competent person for the job since the beginning.
After another procrastinating on Luther Carson’s part, Alice lost her patience
and gave him an ultimatum about what is at stake.
Luther
came to his senses and agreed to actually start working on the book. But this
time, Alice was facing another challenge: The ghost-writer, Brian, heard news
from his wife that she was diagnosed with cancer. He was distraught of having
to be so far from her; torn between the responsibilities that was asked to do
his job, and the love for his wife. Alice made an executive decision to send
him home, and send him Luther’s interview transcripts for him to work with. Her boss was not happy when she found out what Alice did, and even more
upset to find that a supposed clause in the autobiography contract, that Alice
was in charge of, was left out by accident; but nevertheless let Alice
continued with her work with the book.
Luther Carson was a
transformed man, and in a span of a few days, Alice had acquired more materials
for the book than they did two weeks ago. His agent, Sam Newland, was
convinced that writing the autobiography will be the worst decision Luther has
ever made and the stories written will be held against him throughout his entire
career.
Alice and Sam had a
talk and came to an agreement regarding to Luther. Putting that aside as a
resolved problem, they had a few cosy moments where Sam even felt comfortable
enough to tell Alice a few work gossips about famous actors and actresses. The
cosy moments progressed into flimp-flopping, and, oh-my, Nicola Doherty wrote
it in such a way that made you want to hitchhike to the sky.
I love it! I love Alice
and Sam together! I ship!
Much better than if she
ended up with Luther Carson…
But Alice got the idea
that Sam was just playing with her and that it was Marisa, their Italian
friend, who he was really attracted to. Her hesitation put a strain on their friendship
and any potential that it will ever progress to something more. To make matters
worse, Sam found the paper containing an intimate detail of Luther’s hiatus and
thought Alice was tricking him into putting it in the book. Alice returned to
London without ever having the chance to explain herself.
Luck wasn’t on Alice’s
side at work. While she admittedly did a quick progress on the book to the point
of it being finished, she was dismissed from her job. She was accused of
unprofessional conduct when a gossip site wrote about “a publishing house
editor” was spotted coming out of a night club with Luther, accused of firing
the ghost-writer without consulting with her boss, and for carelessly leaving
out an important clause in Luther Carson’s autobiography contract.
I was engrossed in the
book so much when I found out that I had about three more chapters left! What
will happen to Alice and Sam?! I hope they ended up together!
Okay. I just returned
from reading the last few chapters and I have great news!
While going to an art
exhibition with her colleague, Poppy, Alice bumped into a founder of a newly
established publishing agency, who gave her her card and asked Alice to contact
her if she wants to consider working with her.
As a thank you for coming with
her for emotional support, Poppy pulled out Sam Newland’s business card from
her bag that she took from Alice’s boss’s desk. Alice refused to take it,
telling her that contacting Sam will be pointless, to which Poppy replied with
this gem of a quote.
When a nice guy shows an interest in you, you run a mile. It’s as if you think you don’t deserve it. Whereas a creep like Simon has your full attention.
It does make you think all of our the-one-that-got-aways...
A few days later, Alice
was contacted by the managing director of her old workplace, asking her to come
back to working with them again with a promotion. No, begging her would be a more suitable word. It turned out that Sam found
out that Alice was fired from her job and demanded that they reinstated Alice into the company. So the managing director begged her to come back, and if she decided not to,
they promised they will put out a great word out for her if she wanted to work
for any other publishing company.
Alice found out from
Poppy that Luther and Sam were in London, for a premier, and she rushed to the
hotel they were staying in. She felt like it was the only chance to meet face
to face with Sam and talk properly. Sam found her at the reception and they both
went up to his room. They had a proper talk, and what a satisfying feeling it
was to read that they genuinely had feelings for each other and the kiss at the end to
prove it! I was squealing with joy in my seat the whole time! In fact I am
still giddy with happiness.
Want more good news?
The book doesn’t just end with thirty-seven chapters. It had epilogues too!
This blog post of part of On My Bookshelf series of Around the Year in 52 Books reading challenge.
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