Holly's Inbox: Scandal in the City (Holly Denham)****

Holly’s Inbox (which can be viewed on the Internet) is a great idea that probably worked really well online, but Holly’s Inbox the book didn’t quite work. For Holly’s Inbox: Scandal in the City, most of the difficulties have been completely ironed out. Perhaps the reason why Holly’s Inbox didn’t quite work as a book was because it hadn’t been conceived as one. It was more of a soap opera online. In soap operas, it’s just one incident after another, and very few long-term storylines. But presumably when Holly Denham started work on her next lot of fictional e-mails, she knew another book was a strong possibility – and Holly’s Inbox: Scandal in the City does feel like a novel.

The fact that it’s more like a novel does in some ways make it seem less like a series of e-mails. A lot of the e-mails read a lot more like instant messages or spoken conversations. But the characters do have an amazing amount of time each day in which to send e-mails. I don’t have that amount of time and I don’t have a job. And all e-mails take place at work! If I ever get a job I’ll never spend all that time e-mailing. It’s not even as though their jobs are easy. Somehow, none of them seem to have e-mail at home and it’s also surprising that close friends would e-mail one another the juicy details at work rather than catching up at the weekend. And there’s also the problem that anything not described in an e-mail is not seen by the reader.

But you can’t have everything, and it’s difficult to see how Denham – or anyone – could have done it any better. Besides. I’d rather have dramatic e-mails like these that make a great novel than e-mails that sound like e-mails but don’t really work in a book. I bought Scandal in the City because I wanted to read a book, and a book is exactly what I got.

Maybe Denham could have varied things a bit as the scene where Trisha writes e-mails about Holly’s being absent from work due to a broken heart is almost exactly like the scene in Holly’s Inbox where Trisha writes e-mails about Holly’s being absent from work due to a broken heart. But at least this guy was vaguely worth it.

I didn’t like Holly in Holly’s Inbox, but I liked her a lot in this book. It annoyed me slightly (and okay yes I was jealous) that everyone clearly adored Holly but I was agreeing with them before too long. She is very funny and the insanity of her day-to-day life contrasts surprisingly well with her considerable abilities at work. Holly is amazing at her job. Funny, friendly – and a real professional. Despite the amount of time she spends e-mailing.

The other characters are brilliantly done too. Trisha didn’t feature a lot during the early part of the book, and I missed her dry sarcasm, but she was in it more later on. The adorably dippy Claire and the calm and apparently conservative Marie are a great addition to the team. The wonderfully filthy yet wonderfully innocent Aisha returns, along with flamboyant Jason, who is trying desperately to make his boyfriend dump him. Then there are asides from Holly’s mad family, and the one everyone thinks is mad, Holly’s delightfully intrepid Granny.

There are two great villains too. One just pops up occasionally and gives you a good laugh; the other is very cleverly written: a total bitch who is really nice to Holly in a way that doesn’t quite disguise her bitchiness.

There was a rather unrealistic bit at the end – which stood out mostly because I could imagine the rest of the book happening to real people. Even the mad bits. Not only is this moment unrealistic, it’s also not the sort of thing I’d have expected the company directors to put up with for a minute. But it was so much fun, I think Denham gets away with it.