Published by Simon & Schuster, 2009.
“A sweet and insightful story, and there’s certainly more to Friends Like Us than your average chick-lit read.”
– Heat Magazine 5*
“An engaging story.”
– Image Magazine
“Friends Like Us charts the relationships between four life-long friends who have pledged loyalty to one another – but have secrets that even best friends can’t share,”
– Camden New Journal
The story behind the novel
Why would someone become a paparazzo? That’s what I was interested in when I started researching this novel, which covers 30 years in the lives of four women who have known each other since primary school.
The idea came about because of the way it felt returning to the UK after 12 years in Botswana. There were no celebrities then in Botswana, no pop stars, no footballing stars, no reality TV stars – no TV at all. And with no celebs there had been no paparazzi. Botswana was a place where privacy was valued.
But in England, it felt like we were a nation of voyeurs.
When I returned to London most of my old primary school friends had moved elsewhere. I’d missed a lot in 12 years, but we were all still in touch.
And I thought, what if four women met up after a break of many years, and what if one of them had become something odd or unusual … like a celebrity? Or, even better, what if one of them had become a paparazzo?
I met a few paparazzi working in London. One woman, who let me into her day to day life, said she was one of only a handful of women who work as paps in the whole country. It’s a very, very macho world.
And I thought, what sort of woman would want to become a pap? And if she did, then what would it do to her friendships?
Read an interview with Book Chick City