Rom-com Reading: One Night Stand hits shelves
Local author Julie Cohen, who writes sexy fiction for Headline Little Black Dress and Harlequin/Mills & Boon, has set her latest steamy book, One Night Stand, in Reading. Impressive enough. I was also impressed to discover her sparkling blog (it really is sparkling - see for yourself).
In a post published earlier in the week, Julie explains the Reading location in One Night Stand:
I decided to set the story in Reading for three very simple reasons. One was that I wanted something different from all the rom-coms set in London and New York and exciting places like that.
The second was because of my heroine, Eleanor, the erotic comedy writer. I wanted her to be dissatisfied with her life–her job during the day writing smut, her job during the evenings tending bar in a dodgy pub, her lacklustre love life, her mysterious and far too exciting sister June, her boring mother Sheila, her best friend Hugh’s penchant for bringing home a new blonde or redhead every night. A part of that was being dissatisfied with where she lived. Now Reading is actually a quite nice place to live, but it does have its down sides, and Eleanor sees them all. It’s part of her emotional journey to learn about where she lives and to discover that she’s part of the community.
The third, simplest, and possibly the most compelling reason, was that I live in Reading and I was really, REALLY pregnant and I could barely haul myself out of my chair to go to the bathroom several million times a day. There was no way I was going to go research some exotic location for this story.
Specific town locations used in One Night Stand include Forbury Gardens, Jacksons and the Madejski Stadium. The story concerns a bored erotica-writing barmaid named Eleanor who becomes pregnant following a one night stand with a stranger looking like George Michael.
You can buy One Night Stand for just £3.49 from Amazon.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:49 am
So she picked Reading as it was dull, depressing, full of boring and/or slutty people, and due to other writers picking locations that are romantic? It doesn’t suggest she is going to help sell the place to readers, does it?
February 9th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I’ve read that quote Matt posted from my blog several times and have yet to see where I’ve called Reading “dull” or “depressing”, nor the people in it “boring” or “slutty”. The fact that I’ve written a romantic comedy about the town tends to imply that I don’t find it any of those things. Books that are dull, depressing, and boring don’t tend to sell very well, especially when marketed as light, sexy romantic comedy. Books about slutty people do sell extremely well, but alas, my book isn’t that, either.
Anyway, maybe you’d like to pick up the book and see what sort of image of Reading it promotes? There should be a copy in our excellent local library system.
Thanks, Matt, for including me on your blog!