Some Girls Do

In the boom years, when getting published was relatively easy, chick-lit was regarded as a derogatory term. The great exponents of the art resented being classified with inferior beginners.

Now though, when only the strongest writers survive, it’s recognised that it takes skill and originality to pursue the genre of commercial women’s fiction.

Good chick-lit writers incorporate strong characters, page turning appeal, and an ability to make the reader care. The best have found a niche of their own; some appeal to young mothers; others to fun loving twenty-somethings. Clodagh Murphy has made her mark as a writer of sassy sexy fiction; a kind of 50 Shades without the whips, but with a realistic plot and setting.

Claire Kennedy is 28. She’s sweet and shy. She works in a bookshop, lives with her mother, and has seldom had sex, but she has a secret alter ego. Claire is also NiceGirl, an anonymous blogger of the steamy ‘scenes of a sexual nature’.

When Claire is contacted by Mark, a London publisher who offers her a deal, along with the possibility of a relationship, she realises she’s going to have to raise her sexual game. So she asks the commitment-phobe Luca for help. A penniless artist he proves an excellent tutor, but will the plan ultimately work?

Claire’s blog features a variety of fictitious men from Mr Bossy to Mr Strange to; but the real life Mark Bell, she feels, might well be her Mr Right. Living in a posh Highgate apartment, he can offer the Dublin girl the literary life of which she has always dreamed.

Luca, living in a Dublin kip couldn’t be more different. Prickly and promiscuous, he is practically estranged from his family. He was rescued from a Romanian orphanage, but his adoptive mother failed to bond with him. Does he have hidden depths?

I’d never read Clodagh Murphy before, but I loved this book. Wonderfully modern, it makes great use of the internet, and is chock full of characters one can take to the heart. There’s Claire’s sick but warm-hearted mother, who has a coterie of eccentric card playing friends; then there’s Yvonne, who is great with dating advice.

There’s the lesbian friend Catherine, who blogs as a single Mum, and tries out all the free equipment on Paddy; a Paddington Bear who accompanies her everywhere. These are balanced by the prickly ones; foremost of these being the poisonous sister-inlaw Michelle, who never misses a chance to do Claire down and give her hassle.

There’s a nice sense of place is this book. It’s left me with a desire to explore the Iveagh Gardens along with London’s Highgate Cemetery. (My one quibble is that I would have liked more detail of the latter) I liked Murphy’s turn of phrase too, and avoidance of cliché. Blogging as NiceGirl about Mr Bossy’s desire for a threesome, and assuming he means himself with two women, she asks him, writing, “just on the off chance that he’d be the tenth dentist — the one who recommends the regular toothpaste.”

Then there’s all the book talk. Claire and Mark assess each other’s characters through their valuation of various classics; and the less literary Luca, reading Pride and Prejudice to the bereaved Claire, is astonished to discover the delights of The Netherfield Ball. As for Claire, being read to by Luca proves “all pleasure without any effort, like receiving oral sex.”

Sex is the glue holding this enchanting novel together. Pretty explicit, it manages to be sweetly touching thanks to Claire’s initial shyness, and to the dollops of humour that lace their way through the narrative.

The contrast between NiceGirl and Claire is beautifully played out. Did I guess the ending? Of course I did, and early on too. Did it matter? Not a jot.