NEW RELEASE
Following Polly - Karen Bergreen (2010)
Alice Teakle has just been fired from her job as a casting agent. Single, bored and unsure of what to do next, Alice finds a new hobby when she runs into a Harvard acquaintance Polly Dawson. Polly is everything Alice is not - beautiful, successful, married and a celebrity. To see how the "other half" live or maybe just out of boredom, Alice starts to secretly follow Polly on her daily errands, and continues to do so for over a week. But when Polly is murdered, the circumstances leave Alice as the main suspect. So she starts to stalk ... er ... follow her college infatuation and obsession Charlie. Will Charlie help Alice (with whom he has only shared a few polite words)? Is the killer after Alice too? This is a fantastic chick lit mystery, filled with a few lovable, charismatic characters, and a few seedy, sinister types. The story had me totally infatuated. (AV)
New York stand-up comic Karen Bergreen's novel Following Polly sees her neurotic heroine stumble into trouble after she stalks a college acquaintance. The summary says: "Would you call Alice Teakle a stalker? Or just someone with an, um, healthy obsession with golden girl Polly Linley Dawson? No one much notices Alice: not her boss, not the neighbours, not even her mother. Besides, everyone follows Polly: her business selling high-end lingerie you can imagine only her elegant self wearing, her all-over-the-social-pages marriage to movie director Humphrey Dawson, her chic looks, her wardrobe. Alice just follows her a little more closely. And when she loses her job and starts to follow Polly Dawson one Manhattan autumn afternoon, Alice stumbles on the object of her attention sprawled dead on the floor of a boutique. Alice is forced to become truly beneath anyone's notice. Invisible, in fact. Because she's accused of murder. But can another obsession help save Alice with the fallout? Charlie is Alice's long-time unattainable crush. He might be able to help her out of the mess she's in ... in return for a favour or two, that is. And how will Alice find out if Charlie is really the man Alice thinks he is?" Following Polly is out in June.