The Out of Office Girl: Summer comes early with this gorgeous rom-com!

by Nicola Doherty

[Leah]

Nicola Doherty is a debut author this year, and who doesn’t love a debut author? I do. I love finding brand new authors, even more so when such authors are referred to as the new Sophie Kinsella. Sophie Kinsella is my absolute favourite author ever, so the idea of finding a new author just like her is both absurd, but brilliant. Absurd because, well, there’s no one quite like Sophie Kinsella, but brilliant, because Sophie Kinsella has one of the best writing styles ever, so it stands to reason there will be others who write like her. So when my proof copy of The Out of Office Girl heralded the arrival of a new Sophie Kinsella, I was sold, folks, sold. However, when I initially started reading the novel I was more worried that it was an almost carbon-copy of Johnny Be Good by Paige Toon, a favourite book of mine. The normal girl going to assist the celebrity in some way, the celebrity being ludicrously hot, the girl having a crush on the celebrity (obviously) and thinking it absolutely, utterly crazy that the celebrity would ever fall for their English selves. (Which we know is total crap and is usually a precursor to the celeb falling head over heels for the English girl.)

Despite my worry, however, The Out of Office Girl was not an almost carbon-copy of Johnny Be Good, it was just a little bit similar. (Plus Luther is no Johnny.) Instead, after a while, I was able to forget about the comparisons to Johnny Be Good, and was able to enjoy the novel for what it was, which is always a relief. Nicola Doherty does indeed have a very similar writing style to Sophie Kinsella, but I didn’t perhaps find the book as amusing as a Sophie Kinsella read. Nor did I find Alice to be a very Kinsella-esque heroine. Now that I’ve got all sorts of comparisons out of the way, let’s actually discuss the book at hand. (Hurrah, I hear you say.) I found The Out of Office Girl to be a very quick, enjoyable read for my afternoon off. As soon as I started it, I was pretty much hooked on Alice’s story, enjoying the way the book zipped along at quite a pace, as Alice finds herself jetting off to Sicily to work on Luther Carson’s autobiography after her boss, Olivia, takes ill. It’s the stuff of dreams (that never happen to normal folk, or, me, rather) and after we get past how hot Luther is, and Alice’s obvious crush on him and all that stuff, the novel is actually good.

The setting, Siciliy, is fabulous. I’ve never been to Italy, though I’d love to go eventually, and Siciliy sounds as if it would be a wonderful place to start. Doherty described it beautifully and since I already live in such a sunny place, I could just imagine I was there at the villa with everyone. I liked the easy relationship Alice seemed to have with Luther, once she got over being starstruck, and I loved meeting Marisa and Federico, two Sicilian natives, but most of all, I absolutely adored Sam. Oh, Sam. I admit, despite hating the totally obvious celebrity-loving thing and constantly berating cliched, predictable novels, I do love me an annoying sidekick where you know right from the very beginning that he’s not as bad as he seems and, really, he’s not just another typical American, but can actually be quite sweet etc. For some reason, despite seeing the real Sam from a mile off, it didn’t annoy me, because he was a brilliant character. What annoyed me, funnily enough, was Alice’s sniping about him. I wanted to protect him.

So, yes, I very much enjoyed The Out of Office Girl. Yes, it had its similarities to Kinsella/Toon etc, but I liked it. I will very much be reading Doherty’s second novel and although the book wasn’t perfect and I did have some gripes, it would be a book I’d recommend. One thing that does bother me is that the cover depicts a couple on a moped and since the book is set in Italy, which are pretty famous for their mopeds, surely Doherty could have inserted a moped in there somewhere? Silly, I know, but well, I am fussy. And it’s Italy, therefore mopeds are surely a given. But beside that, it’s a quick and sometimes amusing read (though not downright laugh out loud) and there are particular scenes I enjoyed that I will indeed remember and I’m hoping for very good things from Doherty’s second novel.