The Go-To Girl: A Novel

by Louise Bagshawe

Overview

Gorgeous goddesses seem to surround lowly script-reader Anna Brown--from her deranged, glamour-queen boss to her perfect, pouting roommates. For Anna, being less-than-beautiful is hard to bear. With a dead-end job and a dead-beat boyfriend, she wonders if she can ever be a success. In beauty-crazed London, perhaps being talented just isn't enough. Enter Mark Swan, Britain's hottest director. Rugged, reclusive and powerful, everybody wants a piece of him--from studio heads to supermodels. He could be Anna's ticket to the top, but how can she ever hope to snag such a big star? Fed up with being dowdy and downbeat, Anna decides to chase her dreams, and with a little help from her friends, embarks on a madcap scheme to get what she's after.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466839120
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/01/2005
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	781,039
File size:	389 KB

About the Author

Louise Bagshawe is the author of five previous novels, all bestsellers in her native England. She writes full time and lives in New York with her husband and son.

Louise Bagshawe is the author of bestselling novels. At the age of 14, she became the youngest-ever contributor to the British magazine Tablet. An Oxford graduate, she was also named Young Poet of the Year, 1989, and president of the Oxford University Rock Society. She has been Press and Promotions Officer at EMI Classics and has worked for Sony Music International. Louise Bagshawe now writes full time. She lives in New York and married a man she met on the internet. Her books include For All the Wrong Reasons, The Devil You Know and The Go-To Girl.

Editorial Reviews

Anna Brown, the 32-year-old London native who narrates Bagshawe's contrived latest chick-lit offering (after The Devil You Know), is ugly. She describes her unfortunate traits (large nose, masculine build and extra weight) soon after the story begins and never lets the reader forget them. The novel plods along as self-loathing Anna is dumped by an acne-ridden boyfriend, argues with her thin, gorgeous roommates (they're models) and achieves some small successes as an underpaid script reader for a film company. Despite Anna's low self-esteem, when she meets powerful film director Mark Swan, she manages to sabotage their budding friendship by tiresomely insisting that Swan help her sell her first attempt at a script, thus scuttling her best chance for romance. To make matters worse, she agrees to marry another man, super-rich-and super-unattractive-Charles. Few of Bagshawe's characters shrink from opportunism, and their eventual redemption may ring a little false after so much gleeful money-grubbing. Some readers will enjoy the bitchiness, but others may think that ugly is as ugly does, and that Anna deserves her big nose-though the inevitable makeover scene is good fun. Agent, Peter Matson at Sterling Lord Literistic. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

“Girl offers a fun peek at the not-so-glam side of filmmaking--and a cheesy but satisfying Hollywood ending.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Witty and entertaining, Bagshawe's written a delight. Readers will empathize with Anna, a woman who suffers insecurities about her appearance, in this complete package of romance, humor, and emotion.” —Romantic Times Book Club (Top Pick)

From the Publisher