If you take one book to the beach this summer, let it be
Face Value by Kathleen Baird-Murray – a highly readable, wickedly indulgent read for girls on their hols.
The chick lit genre is one that generally provokes a bit of scorn from those who like to think of themselves as more serious readers, and there is no doubt many a woman out there who has attempted a Dostoyevsky by the pool or a Dickens on the beach. These poor, misguided souls tend quickly to find their chosen classic crumpled and covered in sand, their eyes stinging with the effort as, jealously, they watch their companion whizzing their way through a good girly romp. It is like being stuck with The Guardian while your friend reads Grazia and is miserable.
As ex-beauty editor for The Telegraph magazine and health and beauty director at Tatler magazine, Kathleen Baird-Murray is quite at home with the subject of beauty and, in
Face Value, she sticks to what she knows. Her novel tells the story of Kate Miller, a small-time journalist at Maidstone Bazaar, who is mistakenly employed as Beauty Editor at Darling magazine in New York. Hopelessly out of place, with her bad clothes and hair and total lack of beauty knowledge, she is thrown into the deep end, forced to put a positive spin on plastic surgery for the big yearly supplement, in spite of her own personal beliefs.
As she struggles with her new life, her new job and her own identity, she finds that life is not always as it seems and that ‘beauty’, nor the celebrity plastic surgeon in L.A she loathes, are as straightforward as she first thought. Fast-paced, humorous, highly readable and entertaining, this is a feel-good book about beauty that inspires us all to feel more confident – even in our bikinis.
Review by Emily Jenkinson
Publication details:
$11.90 – available from amazon.com
ISBN 0425221458
Published by Penguin
2008
To find out more, visit
Kathleen Baird-Murray's website,
click here
25th July 08
