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Here are summaries of and extracts from the books Name & Address Withheld, Lost and Found , Technical Hitch , Like Mother, Like Daughter , Confessions of a Agony Aunt and The Romancipation of Maggie Hunter.
Name
& Address Withheld Published
by Red Dress Ink
Summary Dear Lizzie Lizzie Ford is an urban sexpert, and her hip London magazine column and radio show are bombarded with casualties on a daily basis. What a relief that, after years in the dating jungle, Lizzie herself has finally landed in the arms of Matt Baker – an advertising genius with enough charm to win over even Lizzie’s man-cynical best friend. Little does Lizzie know there’s more to Matt Baker than witty one-liners and bedroom eyes. Or that this innocent, seemingly anonymous note from a reader is about to catapult her into a scorching scandal, forcing Lizzie to confront some compelling home truths about life, love and loyalty…
Extract Why is it that we always want what we can’t have? It doesn’t matter whether it’s that Prada bag, Nike’s latest offering to trainer culture, Jennifer Aniston’s hair, Jennifer Aniston’s husband, George Clooney, or the senior school sweetheart; there are times in our lives when we think – no, we know – that life would be complete if only we had the item in question. By the same token it is a human failing that we rarely realise what we do have until it is no longer ours to keep. Both have happened to me more often than I would care to remember. Mark was all I wanted between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. My school exercise books were littered with his name, hearts with our initials carved by lust during double English and, most importantly, our percentage of compatibility which I once worked out to be eighty-four percent. A miscalculation. I should have spent more time paying attention in maths. When he finally asked me out the week after my seventeenth birthday – because, I now fear, he had asked everyone else out already – I thought I was going to burst with pleasure. It was a match made in heaven – I had the soft-focus daydreams to prove it. For five weeks it was the real hand-holding thing. My months of background research paid off and I had all the right answers to his questions and all the right cassettes in my collection. I was In Love. Then the object of my misplaced affection stole my virginity before chucking me publicly and unceremoniously just before the end of term. My life ended as quickly as it had begun. I wept and fasted, and wept and fasted some more. Then came the hunger and I ate like never before. My adolescence would certainly have been less traumatic without him, but I would have laughed in the face of anyone who’d tried to tell me at the time. Adult lesson # 1 learned; the hard way…
Lizzie looked up from the magazine. She’d been so busy checking her weekly column for mistakes that she’d momentarily been transported back to her teens. A fist of nerves settled in her stomach as she realised that she’d arrived at her destination. Four hundred people were expected to celebrate Christmas and a successful first year in which City FM had been put on the radio map and, as the station controller Richard Drake like to tell her, as their newest recruit she was an important part of that. Lizzie wished he was there to remind her just once more for the record as her self-confidence temporarily vanished and she fought an increasingly strong urge to melt into the Soho crowds and disappear. Just because it was a work do, it didn’t mean that it was supposed to feel like an assignment, and she couldn’t help feeling that anything referred to as a ‘do’ should always be a don’t. There was, of course, the develop-a-mysterious-24-hour-bug tactic, but from previous experience Lizzie knew that two painful hours at the office party were worth their weight in nights out on the beers for the rest of the year. As the taxi pulled away from the kerb, having deposited its perfumed payload on the pavement, a familiar ringing noise caught her attention. Saved by the bell? She prayed it was an emergency. Nothing life-threatening, just party-threatening, Lizzie rummaged for her mobile, which for several rings eluded her grasp despite the smallness of her bag. ‘Hello?’ ‘It’s nearly quarter to ten, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t you be paralytic by now?’ Lizzie smiled. It was Clare. Best friend, flatmate and chief party outfit adviser. ‘I’ve literally just got out of the cab.’ ‘Well, hurry up and get yourself to that bar. It’s one thing being fashionably late, but if you leave it much longer no one will even remember you were there at all. Just remember you’re gorgeous, witty, intelligent, beautiful and sober…well, relatively…an inestimable advantage at this stage of the evening. You’ll be able to impress them all by still being capable of pronouncing words of more than one syllable. Leave your nerves in the cloakroom and get yourself a drink.’ ‘Thanks. I will…’ A few ego-bolstering words of support and Lizzie’s attitude had done a U-turn. ‘And thanks for all your top fashion advice earlier. Thank God for you and your wardrobe.’ Way back, B.C. (before Clare), Lizzie had endured a couple of outfit faux pas. Now she was practically a D-list celebrity she couldn’t afford to rock any boats with her choice of partywear. ‘No problem. Couldn’t have you rocking up in pin-striped skintight stretch drainpipe jeans!’ ‘Listen you, that photo was taken in 1984. Anyone who was anyone had a pair. Probably even Madonna.’ Clare ignored her. Her job was done and, besides, she had a restaurant to run. ‘Lots of love…catch up with you in the morning for a debrief.’ Lizzie snapped her expensively compact mobile shut. Giving herself a sultry smile, she pulled her shoulders back, instantly adding breasts to her outfit, and despite the newness of her shoes managed to sashay the requisite twenty metres to the door retaining both her composure and the full use of both ankles. ‘Lizzie Ford.’ Sullenly the bouncer checked his list before slowly unhooking the rope that stood between her and the rest of the evening. While the stretch of red curtain tie-back cord at mid-calf level wouldn’t have stopped anything – with the exception, perhaps, of a stray sheep – from getting in if it really wanted to, it was all about the image of exclusivity. Judging by the relief Lizzie now felt at being on the right side, it was working. She smiled amicably at a couple of semi-familiar faces as she swept - well, stepped – into the party, which was already in full swing. Parties had been much more fun when she could waltz up to people who knew nothing about her, might never see her again, and didn’t know where to find her. Now, with her own jingle and her own show, she had forfeited her right to anonymity.
He spotted Lizzie the minute she walked into the busy bar. He knew who she was. Listener research showed that she was already one of their most popular presenters, and thanks to Lizzie Ford an agony aunt with sex appeal was no longer an oxymoron. The Agony and The Ecstasy was outstripping its rivals in the ratings, and she brought a unique blend of understanding, sympathy and the odd soft rock track to their airwaves. Rumour had it she was going to be a big star. Watching her work the room, he had no reason to doubt it. What he really needed was a night in, a pint of Ribena, a balanced meal and a video. But instead he was pouring yet more beer and canapés down his iron-coated alimentary canal. To make matters worse the bloke opposite him had been boring him rigid for the last ten minutes. Here was a graduate with high hopes who hadn’t yet had his enthusiasm dampened by a few years in the workplace, and Matt knew he should have been flattered by the attention. After all, he’d only wanted an insight into the ‘creative wizard’ that was Matt Baker. He’d never been called a wizard to his face before. Maybe it was time to invest in a pointy hat, or at least sew a couple of stars onto his Ted Baker shirt. Matt smiled to himself. Unfortunately this was interpreted by his co-conversationalist as a green light to continue. Matt was barely listening. His eyes were fixed but not focused. Professionally it had been a good year. On the domestic front it was becoming easier and easier to forget that he had a wife. Five years down the line they shared a mortgage and a bathroom, but little else. He’d always known she craved success. Ambition was one of the things he’d found so attractive about her. A fiery determination, which he had no doubt would pay off, and a professional self-belief that could be incredibly intimidating whether you were her bank manager, her boss or just her husband. But now it felt as if he was irrelevant. Last season’s must-have accessory. Taking a swig of his beer, he willed his intoxication to move on to the wildly happy mad-dog phase. Alcoholic introspection was not conducive to the festive spirit. To buy
a copy of Name & Address Withheld: Read an extract from Lost & Found |
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