Time to jump into bed with a writer...
Between The Sheets
By Colette Caddle
Simon & Schuster, Stg £6.99
Colette Caddle is another Irish author of popular fiction who has made it big in the UK and her latest comes from a heavyweight British publisher.
Her ninth novel, Between The Sheets, takes on the risky territory of writers writing about writers. Caddle's protagonist Dana De Lacey is a beautiful, best-selling chick-lit author who seems to have it all, with a successful, gorgeous husband and a fabulous lifestyle.
But Dana has a secret background. The daughter of a respected Irish poet, her upbringing was difficult and unhappy. Her beloved older brother Ed left home early and with both parents long dead, the pair have been estranged ever since.
While Dana's books have enjoyed enormous success in the US, her latest book will finally see her published in her homeland. Everything is going swimmingly, until her husband Gus suddenly leaves her. As Dana goes to pieces, so too does her novel and any hope of it being published.
She alienates everyone around her from her housekeeper to her PA and gradually realises there is one story she has to write before she can write anything else -- her own story.
Revisiting her past brings her brother Ed back into her life and her own darkest secrets into the light.
In the midst of this well-constructed plot, Colette Caddle manages to throw in a few flings and some real love affairs, too, without trivialising her main storyline. No mean feat. She also makes some pointed observations on the publishing industry - the demands publishers can make of authors and the pressures younger, more enthusiastic authors can bring to bear.
But story is paramount to Caddle and her observations are always presented as entertaining vignettes.
At one point, Dana's PA tells her, "Women read your books to escape". Like her heroine, Colette Caddle's latest book may be escapist, but it also offers a rare and welcome air of self-awareness that comes only with experience.
- Edel Coffey
