Friday, January 10, 2020

On My Bookshelf: The Out of Office Girl, by Nicola Doherty



[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.

Most importantly, if you want to find a book by an author whose name contains A, T, and Y for your book reading challenge, this is the book (at least one of the books).

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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