A Very Nice Girl

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR **A GRAZIA BOOK OF THE YEAR SELECTED FOR MALALA'S BOOK CLUB 'Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People' MEG MASON, author of SORROW AND BLISS** 'Haunting and bleakly compelling ... A writer of promise' SUNDAY TIMES 'An absorbing debut about sex and power' GUARDIAN 'Elegant and witty ... A precursor to great things' THE TIMES 'One of the buzziest debut novels this spring' VOGUE CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY VOGUE AND ESQUIRE _____________________________________________________________________________ A bitingly hone****st, darkly funny debut about love, sex, power and desire, by a major new British talent Anna is struggling to afford life in London as she trains to be a singer. During the day, she vies to succeed against her course mates with their discreet but inexhaustible streams of cultural capital and money, and in the evening she sings jazz at a bar in the City to make ends meet. It's there that she meets Max, a financier fourteen years older than her. Over the course of one winter, Anna's intoxication oscillates between her hard-won moments on stage, where she can zip herself into the skin of her characters, and nights spent with Max in his glass-walled flat overlooking the city. But Anna's fledgling career demands her undivided attention, and increasingly – whether he necessarily wills it or not – so does Max… _____________________________________________________________________________ 'Touching on feminism, power, finances and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship, this book is an assured debut' CLAIRE FULLER, author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted UNSETTLED GROUND 'Imogen Crimp captures the glittering thrill of being young and choosing your own life with a dark, unflinching undercurrent of desire, power and control' JESSICA ANDREWS, author of SALTWATER 'A blazing, darkly funny debut that captures a young woman's search to find herself ... It has an honesty and tenderness that will stay with me for a long time' RACHEL JOYCE