When She was Bad (Louise Bagshawe)***

There’s no doubt that Louise Bagshawe can write. She writes extremely well. Her descriptions are detailed and vivid. I often have trouble ‘seeing’ what writers are describing but it was easy to picture what Bagshawe had in mind, even though she was writing about places I knew nothing about, including some she could have invented for all I know.

Her characters are interesting, her dialogue is witty and you’re never going to get them confused. It’s mostly a serious book but it’s certainly not without humour. When Lita, her main character, goes to work for an advertising firm, Bagshawe describes advertising campaigns that are good or bad, successful and unsuccessful. And she does it convincingly. Her advertising campaigns actually sound like advertising campaigns. When Lita has an idea that is hailed as brilliant by the other characters, I’ve already decided for myself that it’s a great idea. (Okay I have no interest in buying the products but that’s probably more to do with me than the writing.) The plot at times seemed more like a series of episodes but there were plotlines that went all the way through the book and at times it really was enthralling.

So why didn’t I like the book?

The main problem was that I didn’t like the characters. Lita, a Bronx girl who becomes a famous model and then a top advertiser, is cold, hard and on some occasions just nasty. Bagshawe tries to give the impression that she needs to be nasty in order to survive and maybe there’s some truth in that but it never really feels as though Lita is putting on an act.

Also, everything comes to her too easily. Yes, she works her butt off and she is clearly (and believably) intelligent. But it’s not always easy to sympathise with successful characters. From a very early stage in the book I realised that whatever happened, Lita was going to land on her feet, probably within the next few pages. Not only that, she was going to end up somewhere even better than where she was before. So I very quickly stopped worrying about her.

There is another important main character called Becky. She doesn’t appear in about the first third of the book but from that point on maybe just under half the book is from her point of view, half is from Lita’s and there’s a little bit from various other characters. I did like Becky at first. I did feel some sympathy for her when she arrived at the English house she inherited, only to be made to feel very unwelcome by the snobby relatives living in the house at the moment. But then later Becky becomes unrealistically intelligent and competent, full of ideas about things she didn’t have a clue about before. So in the end she’s just a slightly warmer version of Lita.

Their relationships are also rather unconvincing. There’s a total twat called Rupert who dupes Lita and nearly manages to dupe Becky but it just didn’t ring true for me how someone as intelligent as Lita was so completely taken in. Then Lita meets a couple of other men, neither of whom I liked, before finding one who just happened to be right for her. Not that he ever seemed right for her but he was an improvement on the others.

The relationship between Becky and the guy she likes is great at first. I loved the way they disliked each other on sight, yet it was clear they really fancy each other. Then there are lots of arguments and misunderstandings and very occasionally a very short amount of time (maybe two seconds) when they’re actually enjoying each other’s company. But then it gets a bit unrealistic and it’s never really resolved between them.

Another thing I didn't notice myself but which seems worth mentioning is that the book is full of errors (click the title of the review and it should take you to the Amazon reviews). Lita ages five years in the time it takes Becky to age one year. There are references to a song and to linguistic phrases that weren't around at the time when the book is set. I don't know for sure whether this is true as I'd have to read the book again and I don't want to do that but I thought it was worth mentioning. And well done to the reviewers for paying enough attention to the book to spot things like this.

I have another Louise Bagshawe book on my shelf waiting to be read – and I will read it. But to be honest, the thing that interests me most is whether it has a character called Victoria in. In both of the Bagshawe books I’ve read (the other is Tuesday’s Child), there’s a total bitch called Victoria. They’re not the same person. So what’s she got against Victorias? (Although I can’t think of anyone called Victoria I actually like…)