A punchy and powerful novel about the redemptive power of great
literature, from industry insider, John Purcell.
Amy Winston is a hard-drinking, bed-hopping, hot-shot young book editor
on a downward spiral. Having made her name and fortune by turning an
average thriller writer into a Lee Child, Amy is given the unenviable
task of steering literary great Helen Owen back to publication.
When Amy knocks on the door of their beautiful townhouse in West London,
Helen and her husband, the novelist Malcolm Taylor, are conducting a
silent war of attrition. The townhouse has been paid for with the
enormous seven-figure advance Helen has received for the novel she wrote
to end fifty years of making ends meet on critical acclaim alone. The
novel Malcolm thinks unworthy of her. The novel Helen has yet to
deliver. The novel Amy has come to collect.
Amy has never faced a challenge like this one. Helen and Malcolm are
brilliant, complicated writers who unsettle Amy into asking questions of
herself - questions about what she values. Before she knows it,
answering these questions becomes a matter of life and death.
From ultimate book-industry insider John Purcell comes a literary
page-turner, a ferocious, fast-paced and ultimately moving novel about
ambition, integrity and the redemptive power of great literature.
'A slick, sharp novel about books and relationships, drenched in
delicious insider detail from the book industry. Impossible not to
enjoy.'
Matt Haig
'A juicy page turner that takes a scalpel to the literary world, written
with deep insider intel and a gleeful sense of mischief, The Girl on
the Page is a wickedly clever, razor-sharp satire of lust, betrayal and
ambition.'
Caroline Baum
'John Purcell triumphs with a scalpel in one hand and his heart in the
other. It is a gripping, dark comedy of a novel which eviscerates the
cynicism of contemporary publishing while uttering a cri du coeur for
what is happening to writers and readers this century.'
Blanche d'Alpuget
