Gemma genuinely loves researching clothes - her roommate hates watching historical series with her because Gemma can't see the plot or the dialogue if the costumer used the wrong type of military regiment for the era and setting. When a toffee-nosed woman comes to Sew Wonderful, the one stop shop for all things textile, wanting to know about braiding, Gemma can't help showing her up - being treated like an ignorant shopgirl presses all her buttons. Though she seems disapproving, Arabella - Butterfly Film's head of costume - likes Gemma and, after a brief interview a couple of days later, offers her a job on a new period film.
Jono Knighton's made it to the big time - Rowan, his beautiful actress wife, on the other hand, is slowly drowning her sorrows and wrecking what remains of her career. She's not averse to belting him, either, when she's drunk, which is much of the time. When he meets Gemma he's attracted to her realness, her gumption, and her readiness to tell him off. Though there's genuine heat, Gemma won't have an affair with a married man.
As if it wasn't bad enough that an upstart took her job, Tina is enraged when she discovers that Gemma is having an affair with Jono, the rat married to her beloved Rowan. Though they've never met, Tina knows they're kindred spirits, and she knows everything about her idol. They even have the same sheet of platinum hair, although Tina's is helped along. Desprate to protect Rowan and show up Gemma, Tina arranges to have her fired.
Fired from her first job in the industry, accused of an affair she wanted but never had, Gemma seeks refuge in a small but popular provincial theatre. The sole costumer, she works around the clock for months, to tired at the end of the day to read any gossip mags or even watch the news.
This is an entertaining but not startling addition to the Brit chick lit genre - the obstacles between the main characters are relatively believable and manage to keep them both sympathetic (not easy when infidelity's concerned), and the secondary plot's fine. I just wasn't enthralled by The Movie Girl, and at the beginning (before the plot took hold) found parts of it actively annoying - like the idea that "BMW... Big Male Wanker" is anything like "language [that] went from ladylike to something her father would have found profane in Southampton Docks." Well, unless the docks of Southampton are considerably tamer than... I don't know, my local cinema foyer.
However, the writing won me over, enough that - though I'm not tracking her books down - if another Kate Lace crosses my path I'll pick it up. - Alex
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