Billy And Me - Giovanna Fletcher
Published: 23/05/13
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 402
Most people will know Gi from THAT wedding video and because she is married to Tom from McFly. However she is also an actress and journalist who has turned her hand to writing novels. She lives in London with her husband Tom and their three gorgeous cats!
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Gi, always being referred to as the wife of Tom from McFly, but she has shown she is a lot more than just his wife. I was slightly dubious however when I first heard about this book, was Gi just trying to cash in on her husband’s fame or was she really going to write a good book?
I am delighted to say it was the latter! Gi has written a brilliant debut novel and I am pretty sure her writing career will go from strength to strength after this. I couldn’t help but draw parallels to Johnny Be Good by Paige Toon, the idea of a normal girl falling in love with a huge superstar, but unlike Johnny in Johnny Be Good, I fell head over heels in love with Billy. Oh how I wish he was real….
The novel begins with Sophie May working in a little tea shop in a small village in the Kent countryside. She is not really sure where her life is going after a traumatic event happened in her past. She has dreams but has never felt like she has the chance or power to make them come true and therefore spends her life serving tea and making cakes for the local village regulars, something she enjoys very much. Cue the entry of heartthrob Mr Billy Buskin. He is working on Pride & Prejudice which is being filmed in Sophie’s village and he starts using the little tea shop as a place to learn his lines and relax between filming. Sophie and Billy start to spend more time together and fall in love. Sophie loves everything about Billy but soon she is thrown into the glamorous world of Billy and she ends up finding her new life overwhelming. Can she live life in the spotlight or is it all too much for a small town girl with small ambitions?
I know I’ve already said it but OH MY GOD Billy is divine. His character is so perfect and loveable; I found myself wishing he was real on multiple occasions. Sophie is such a sweet character and I really identified with her, she is quite shy and suffers from panic attacks (something I suffer with too) so it really made me connect with her straight away. As the book goes on, she begins to seem pretty needy and clingy and it did cross my mind as being annoying however when I stepped back from the book, I thought that actually I would do exactly the same in her situation as most other people would too. All of the characters within this book are so well developed and I totally got engrossed in Sophie’s life.
I loved this book from the first sentence to the last and I really recommend picking this up when it is published in a few days’ time. It will have you laughing and crying and make you want to fall in love with a movie star!
An impressive debut from Gi, I cannot wait to see what the future books she writes have in store for us!
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 402
Most people will know Gi from THAT wedding video and because she is married to Tom from McFly. However she is also an actress and journalist who has turned her hand to writing novels. She lives in London with her husband Tom and their three gorgeous cats!
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Gi, always being referred to as the wife of Tom from McFly, but she has shown she is a lot more than just his wife. I was slightly dubious however when I first heard about this book, was Gi just trying to cash in on her husband’s fame or was she really going to write a good book?
I am delighted to say it was the latter! Gi has written a brilliant debut novel and I am pretty sure her writing career will go from strength to strength after this. I couldn’t help but draw parallels to Johnny Be Good by Paige Toon, the idea of a normal girl falling in love with a huge superstar, but unlike Johnny in Johnny Be Good, I fell head over heels in love with Billy. Oh how I wish he was real….
The novel begins with Sophie May working in a little tea shop in a small village in the Kent countryside. She is not really sure where her life is going after a traumatic event happened in her past. She has dreams but has never felt like she has the chance or power to make them come true and therefore spends her life serving tea and making cakes for the local village regulars, something she enjoys very much. Cue the entry of heartthrob Mr Billy Buskin. He is working on Pride & Prejudice which is being filmed in Sophie’s village and he starts using the little tea shop as a place to learn his lines and relax between filming. Sophie and Billy start to spend more time together and fall in love. Sophie loves everything about Billy but soon she is thrown into the glamorous world of Billy and she ends up finding her new life overwhelming. Can she live life in the spotlight or is it all too much for a small town girl with small ambitions?
I know I’ve already said it but OH MY GOD Billy is divine. His character is so perfect and loveable; I found myself wishing he was real on multiple occasions. Sophie is such a sweet character and I really identified with her, she is quite shy and suffers from panic attacks (something I suffer with too) so it really made me connect with her straight away. As the book goes on, she begins to seem pretty needy and clingy and it did cross my mind as being annoying however when I stepped back from the book, I thought that actually I would do exactly the same in her situation as most other people would too. All of the characters within this book are so well developed and I totally got engrossed in Sophie’s life.
I loved this book from the first sentence to the last and I really recommend picking this up when it is published in a few days’ time. It will have you laughing and crying and make you want to fall in love with a movie star!
An impressive debut from Gi, I cannot wait to see what the future books she writes have in store for us!
Laura