Straight Talking by Jane Green (English) Paperback Book

Description: Straight Talking by Jane Green Are you Tasha - single and searching? Or her best friends: Andy, hooked on passion; Mel, stuck in a relationship with a bastard; or Emma, endlessly waiting for her other half to propose? Do you know an Andrew - suave, good-looking and head over heels in love... with himself? Or a Simon - allergic to commitment and dangerously treacherous? FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description This could be about your best friend. Or your girlfriend. Or it might be about you. Are you Tasha - single and still searching? Are you one of her three best friends? Andy, hooked on passion; Mel, stuck in a steady relationship with a bastard; or Emma, endlessly waiting for her other half to propose? Do you know an Andrew - suave, goodlooking and head over heels in love...with himself? Or a Simon - allergic to commitment and dangerously treacherous? Or an Adam - handsome, kind, humorous, but too nice to be sexy? Follow them all in their odyssey to find fulfilment and the RIGHT kind of love in this novel that is very funny, painfully honest, sometimes sad but always on the button. Notes The honest and romantic debut from the No.1 bestselling author of 14 novels, with a fantastic new look. Cancel all engagements and read it Tatler Back Cover This could be about your best friend. Or your girlfriend. Or it might be about you. Are you Tasha - single and searching? Or her best friends: Andy, hooked on passion; Mel, stuck in a relationship with a bastard; or Emma, endlessly waiting for her other half to propose? Do you know an Andrew - suave, good-looking and head over heels in love . . . with himself? Or a Simon - allergic to commitment and dangerously treacherous? Or even an Adam - handsome, kind, humorous, but too nice to be sexy? Follow them all in their journey to find fulfillment and love. Funny, honest, superb Company Any woman whos suffered a relationship trauma will die for this book. Wickedly funny, will make you squeal with laughter Cosmopolitan Author Biography Jane Green is the Number One bestselling author of fourteen novels: Straight Talking, Jemima J, Mr Maybe,Bookends, Babyville, Spellbound, The Other Woman, Life Swap, Second Chance, The Beach House, Girl Friday, The Love Verb, The Patchwork Marriage and The Accidental Husband. Jane and her husband live in Connecticut with their blended family of six children. Review Wickedly funny Cosmopolitan Cancel all engagements and read it Tatler Kirkus US Review London girlfriends. Tasha is intelligent, sophisticated, and successful-just like her best pals Mel, Emma, and Andy, who meet for lunch once a week and chat incessantly. Alas, a dreary but inescapable truth has cast a pall over their sunny fantasies of lifelong love: Men Are Bastards. Especially the handsome ones. Oh, bloody hell-why are these four brave women such fools? Are all males of the species cruel and selfish? Yet handsome bastards remain must-have accessories. Television producer Tasha still pines for Simon, a fabulously witty editor who dumped her for a blond model. Therapist Mel-so good, so genuine-must cope with the antics of Daniel, a lecherous lawyer. Emma simply cannot get Richard, her significant other, to commit. And Andy, the youngest, happily flirts with all comers, sadly unaware that she too is doomed to suffer the pain of unrequited passion. Different kinds of pain are explored in exhausting detail: the Pain of Being Single, of a Meaningless Relationship, of Divorce, of Marriage. Perhaps, muses Tasha, its all the fault of her mother, who endured her handsome husbands infidelities for too long. Her irritating shrink, Louise, concurs. Could it be that Tashas childhood plumpness was an effort to comfort herself with food? Louise is quick at making these connections and repeatedly pointing out the obvious. When not soaking dozens of Kleenexes in Louises office, Tasha goes out with Simons friend Adam, a kindly bear of a man who is unfortunately far too normal and unexciting. And so she finds herself inexorably drawn to a suave heartbreaker (see above: unresolved Oedipal issues), as if searching for more proof that men are indeed no good. The girlfriends weigh in with their opinions-so many insights! Pages of them! But Adam soldiers on, determined to demonstrate his fundamental decency-and surprising skill in bed. Happy ending. Not previously published in the US, this is Greens first outing, precursor to the much more entertaining Jemima J (2000) and Mr. Maybe (2001). (Kirkus Reviews) Review Text Wickedly funny Review Quote "Any woman whos suffered a relationship trauma, or simply lost her way in the confusion of modern life, will die for this book . . . Wickedly funny, it may not improve your love life, but it will make you squeal with laughter." - Cosmopolitan "Irritatingly accurate, Straight Talking is a hilarious and poignant look at love and sex." - Elle "Sharp, funny, and packed with familiar situations for all those whove ever embarked on the dating game." - Tattler Excerpt from Book 1 I was never supposed to be single at thirty years old. I was supposed to be like my mother, wasnt I? Married, a couple of kids, a nice home with Colefax and Fowler wallpaper and a husband with a sports car and a mistress or two. Well, to be honest I would mind about the mistresses, but not as much as I mind being single. What Id really, really love is a chance to walk down that aisle dressed in a cloud of white, and lets face it, Im up there at the top, gathering dust. It cant be that unusual, surely, to be thirty years old and to spend most of your spare time dreaming about the most important day of your life? I dont know, perhaps its just me, perhaps other women redirect their energies into their careers. Perhaps Im just a desperately sad example of womanhood. Oh God, I hope not. Its not as if I havent had relationships, although, admittedly, none of them have come close to proposing. Ive come close to thinking they were my potential husband. A bit too close. Every time. But hey, if youre going to go into it you may as well go into it thinking this time he might be Mr. Right, as opposed to Mr. Right-for-three-weeks-before-he-does-his-usual-disappearing-act. Sometimes I think its me. I think I must be doing something wrong, giving out subliminal messages so they can smell the desperation, read the neon lights on my forehead . . . "keep away from this woman, she is looking for commitment," but most of the time I think its them. Bastards. All of them. But I never quite lose hope that my perfect man, my soulmate, is out there waiting for me, and every time my heart gets broken I think that next time its going to be different. And Im a sucker for big, strong, handsome men. Exactly the type my mother always told me to avoid. "Go for the ugly ones," she always used to say, "then theyll be grateful." But she landed up with my handsome father, so shes never had the pleasure of that particular experience. And the problem with small men is they make you feel like an Amazonian giant. At least they do if youre five feet, eight and a half inches, and a size twelve, or thereabouts, the product of constant dieting in public, and constant bingeing in private. Big men are far better. They put their arms around you, their head resting on yours and you feel like a little girl; safe from the big bad world; as if nothing could ever go wrong again. So here I am, and for your information I am neither fat, ugly, nor socially dysfunctional. Most people think Im twenty-six, which secretly annoys the hell out of me, because I like to think of myself as mature and sophisticated, and Im generally thought of as strikingly attractive. I know this because the men--when theyre still in the stages of being kind to me--say this, but unfortunately Ive always longed to be strikingly pretty. Ive tried being pretty, painting on big eyes and looking coyly out from under my fringe, but pretty cant be attained. Pretty, you either are or you arent. Im successful, in a fashion. I earn enough money to go on shopping binges at Joseph every three months or so, and I own my own flat. OK, its not in the smartest part of London, but if you closed your eyes between the car and the front door, you might--only might, mind--just think you were in Belgravia. Apart from the lingering smell of cat pee that is. Of course I have cats. What self-respecting single career woman of thirty whos secretly desperately longing to give it all up for the tall, rich stranger of her dreams doesnt have cats? Theyre my babies. Harvey and Stanley. They might be stupid names, but I quite like the idea of cats having human names, particularly ones you dont expect. The greatest name I ever heard was Dave the cat. A cat called Dave--brilliant, isnt it? I cant stand Fluffys, or Squeaks, or Snowys. And then people wonder why their cats are arrogant. Id be supercilious, too, if my mother had called me Fluffy. Luckily she didnt. She called me Anastasia, Nasty to my enemies, Tasia, Tasha, to my friends, of which I have many. Because just in case youre reading this and you happen to be happily married with other couples as friends, doing cozy couply things together, let me tell you that when youre a single girl, friends are vital. I always thought the womens magazines were talking a load of crap when they told you to forget about men, crack open a bottle of wine, and sit around with your girlfriends cackling about sex, but its true. I still cant quite believe its true because its only recently--well, within the last three years--that Ive discovered this group of female friends, but thats exactly what we do, once a week, and just in case youre thinking its sad and lonely, its not. Its great. Theres me, naturally; Andrea, commonly known as "Andy"; Mel; and Emma. And I suppose, much as I hate the term ladettes, thats exactly what we are, except we all despise football. Actually Andy says she loves football, and she claims to support Liverpool, but she only says it for two reasons: She fancies Stan Collymore, and she thinks it impresses men. They are impressed, but they dont fancy her because Andrea is everything I dread. Shes more "blokeish" than most of the blokes I know. If a guys drinking beer, Andrea will instantly challenge him to a drinking competition, and she usually wins. Attractive? I dont think so. They all think shes a great laugh but they wouldnt want to wake up next to her. You think Im bitter? If youd been dumped from a great height by what feels like practically every single man in London, youd be slightly bitter. But bear with me and youll discover Im not quite as bitter as I sound. In case youre wondering how I earn my money, Im a television producer. A bit of a joke, isnt it? I who leads such an exciting glamorous life, producing a daytime television show, I who rubs shoulders with the stars every day of her life, I who cant find a bloody man. But Ive had some fun on the show, I grant you. I remember one time an actor came on as a guest--cant tell you who he is, much as Id like to, because hes very famous, and very famously married to an equally famous wife. The night before the show I had to go to his hotel to brief him, you know, just to check my researcher had got the right stuff, and there we were, drinking gin and tonics in the hotel bar, with him rubbing my leg under the table. I cant deny I fancied him rotten and I followed him upstairs to make sure we "hadnt left anything out." Gave him the blow job to end all blow jobs. Ill admit it didnt do a lot for me, but then again, Ive dined out on that story for nearly four years. I would tell you too, you understand, but were not exactly close friends, and I havent decided whether or not I can trust you. But what I have decided is to tell you about my life, and for all this hard, career-type stuff, Im a real softie inside. The classic scratch-the-surface-and-youll-find-marshmallow stuff. Youve got to be hard in television--I didnt make it this far just by dishing out the odd blow job--but put me in a room with a man I could love, a man who could take care of me, and Im jelly, bloody jelly. Thats my problem, you see. They meet me and think I spell danger, glamour, excitement, and then two weeks down the line, right about the time Im trying to move my toothbrush into their bathroom cabinet and my silk nightdress under their pillow, they realize Im not so different after all. And after Ive cooked them gourmet meals, because Im an excellent cook, and added a few flowers and feminine touches to their bachelor pads, they know I could make a good wife. Actually Id make a bloody superb wife; and theyre off, like shit from a shovel. Id love to take you back over my whole life, but you probably wouldnt be that interested. Two parents, middle-class, comfortable, even wealthy I suppose, and not very interested in me. I was the classic wild child, except I think I probably could have been a bit more wild, a bit more crazy, but underneath the good girl was always fighting to get out. Maybe thats why people think Im a bitch now. Id spent so many years trying to be good, being walked over by everyone, when I decided to stand up for my rights, and people started getting scared; and what do people do when theyre scared of you? Exactly. They call you a bitch. But my close friends know thats not true, and I suppose theyre the only ones that really matter. Hang on, the doorbells ringing. God, I hate people dropping in unexpectedly. This guy I used to fancy, Anthony, once came over when I was in a grubby old bathrobe with legs that were booked in for a leg wax the following week. I looked a state, and I had to sit there and talk to him, trying to hide my gorilla legs. We never got it together, unsurprisingly. Its OK though, its Andy. She probably wants to hear about the last one, the three-monther, bit of a record for me. For all her faults, Andys great, always makes you feel better. Every time I get dumped I turn first to Mel to ease the pain, and then to Andy to cheer me up, and inevitably I leave feeling the worlds a better place. Good job she joined us now, before I get seriously depressed. You may as well join us, sit down, kick your shoes off, and dont worry, its a smokers flat. Beer or Chardonnay, which would you prefer? The hosts of my show are the biggest pair of assho Details ISBN0141011513 Author Jane Green Pages 304 Publisher Penguin Books Ltd Year 2002 ISBN-10 0141011513 ISBN-13 9780141011516 Format Paperback Publication Date 2002-09-05 Imprint Penguin Books Ltd Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 823.914 Birth 1968 Media Book Language English Short Title STRAIGHT TALKING Residence London, ENK Audience General/Trade AU Release Date 2002-09-05 NZ Release Date 2002-09-05 UK Release Date 2002-09-05 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:1083167;

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