NEW RELEASE
Leftovers - Stella Newman (2013)
According to a magazine feature, at 36, single and plodding along in her career, Susie Rosen is a Leftover. But when she's given the project of launching a new brand of pizzas in a nationwide supermarket chain, it seems that her promotion is just around the corner. But to get there she has to make a success of it, which means meeting impossible deadlines, managing inflated egos and trying to ensure damage limitation. Then there's the matter of her love life. Despite her boyfriend cheating on her, Susie has never quite gotten over him and these days she is consigned to the role of wing-woman for her stunning friend Rebecca, meaning that she ends up chatting awkwardly to the hot guy's friend whilst Rebecca gets chatted up by the hot guy. The one thing that keeps her going throughout is food and her grandmother's philosophy that there is a pasta shape and sauce for every situation. And as soon as she gets this promotion she plans on quitting her job and turning her love for food into a career. There's just that small matter of the promotion. This is the first Stella Newman book I've read and I found her writing witty and engaging. Susie is a great, contemporary heroine and the situations that Newman puts her in both in her work and her personal life are hugely entertaining. I was a bit disappointed by the romance in the novel, and in particular the way her relationship with her old high school boyfriend just sort of fizzles out, but much of the novel is about the pitfalls and realities of being single in your mid-30s and the focus is more on Susie's career. This is a funny and honest story and I'll certainly be following the author's work from now on. (JC)
Leftovers, by Stella Newman, is about friendship, hope and the power of pasta. The summary says: "Susie Rosen's life is a mess. According to her best friend Rebecca, she needs to get over her ex, Jake. Move forward, start online dating - or at least stop being rude to every guy who tries to chat her up. According to a magazine, she's a 'Leftover' - a post Bridget-Jones 30 something who has neither her dream job, nor a family of her own. She doesn't even own six matching dinner plates. This is a novel about what it's really like to be single nowadays in your mid-30s in a big city. It's about the leftovers we carry with us from our past, the things we need to leave behind." Leftovers is out in April.