So, how have you been?

You know you're long overdue a blog post when people are leaving gentle reminders on my Twitter asking me when I'm going to update. Ooops!

Anyway, here I am with a few snippets of news and links and some stuff for you to look at. I'm deep in the first draft hinterlands for my second grown-up book, which is not going to be called Lightweight anymore. It's going to be called something else but I need to check that TPTB are completely happy with the new title, before you guys can be the first to know what it is. I'm on a very tight deadline for this book so my whole world has shrunk down to chapter outline, whiteboard and word count.

Here's a picture of my lovely whiteboard, with the next few chapter sketched out. Main plot in blue marker pen, sub-plot in green, purposely taken from a long distance so I don't give away any secrets:



And here is my lovely word count envelope. Every day when I open up Microsoft Word, I look at my word count and then scribble the number down on the back of an envelope. I don't know why I can't just use a pristine piece of paper, it always seems to be the back of an envelope. You can see that some days are more productive than others.



Apart from frantic book writing, I'm getting the next teen book, Nobody's Girl, oven-ready. Just waiting for the copy-edited proofs to come in and the latest version of the cover - I can say no more than that, otherwise I'll probably start crying. And I'm percolating the teen book after that and the third grown-up novel. It's very busy in my head right now. But rest assured, there will be both teen and grown-up books in my future. As long as people want to publish them, I'll keep writing them.

Talking of which, I wanted to show you the French covers for Fashionistas: Laura and Fashionistas: Hadley.




Tres jolie, mais non?

There are also Brazilian editions of Fashionistas to come and Italian Diary Of A Crushes. There are no plans for foreign editions of Unsticky just yet, though the English edition is on sale in Australia, New Zealand and India. Global recession, don't you know. Let's not talk about that but move on to happier things like links!

An interview I did for the Australian magazine and website, Mindfood.

A lovely girl called Lucy made a trailer for Pretty Things using the characters from the show, Almost Famous. Yes, there's a bit of artistic license (never a bad thing in my book) but I think she did a fantastic job.

And as ever, I am on Twitter. I update far too much during the course of a day and this is the only place where you can get in touch with me and have a good chance of getting a reply. Though if it's to ask for sequels of anything or writing tips, then I will just direct you to the tags on the left hand side of this here blog, because there's only so much a girl can say in 140 characters.

One of these days I need to make a proper website with an FAQ but we're talking time, money and technical skills, none of which I have!

OK, I think that was everything I needed to tell you. Sorry I've been such a slacker of late but I'm all tunnel vision girl with writing the second grown-up book at the moment and nursing the big toe on my right foot. Had to have the toenail removed after too much working out at the gym, then stubbing my toe so hard that the nail lifted up. Hurt like a beeyacth, let me tell you!

If I haven't updated in a couple of weeks, nag me. I respond very well to the right kind of pressure.

Live on

Sarra x

SNEAK PREVIEW! Fashionistas: Candy!

I'm in deep hibernation mode as I try to get to the end of the never-ending first draft of my grown up novel, Unsticky.

The fourth and final book in the Fashionistas series, Candy, is out or is almost out or was stocked way too early by some bookshops. Whatever! Either way, here is a teaser to whet your appetites:

"I'm moving to London and that's all there is to it," Candy informed her mother who was clipping coupons.

"Is this about that boy who tried to do the kiss and tell, sweetie?" Bette cooed, putting a fifty cent coupon for cupcakes in the 'yes' pile. "I know that you've had your heart broken but what has London got that New York hasn't?"

"It doesn't have you in it," Candy wanted to say but she stuck to the lines she'd rehearsed in her head. "It's got nothing to do with that asswipe," she bit out, which was only half true. "I'm fed up with taking part in this freaking freakshow. God, I want to be halfway normal for a little bit so I want out!"

"If I ran off to London every time life let me down, I'd have dual nationality by now," Bette breathed. "C'mon, Candy Cane…"

"I've told you not to call me that..."

"…you're not a quitter. Stay in New York and we'll buy new shoes, go to The Waverly for brunch, anything you want, you'll soon be sunny smiles again."

"I've never been sunny smiles in my life," Candy snarled, because Bette was the most infuriating woman in the world when she was purposely not getting a clue. Actually, scratch that. She was the most infuriating woman in the world. Period. Candy glared at her half brother, Reed, who was here under duress and hadn't made eye contact with Bette yet. He really needed to get over the whole my-mother-left-me-and-my-father-when-I-was-five-to-run-off-with-a-degenerate-punk-icon thing.

Reed sighed. "I don't think this is the best place for Candy to be right now," he said, gesturing at the cluttered apartment, his gaze resting on one of the cats licking milk from Candy's half-finished bowl of cereal. "And I'll be in London to keep an eye on her." He sounded far too Big Brother-ish for Candy's liking. As if he wasn't just saying it to get her Mom off her back but like he was planning all sorts of fun things like curfews and rules.

"But you're just so young, baby girl," Bette breathed, eyes wide.

"I'm 16 and when you were my age, you were gallivanting around the world and being all model-ly and shit," Candy pointed out.

"And look how well that turned out," Reed muttered sotto voce but Candy wasn't done.

"I'm old enough to take care of myself," she burst out, her voice rising to a pitch that had Conceptua bustling in with a handful of laundry.

"She go to London, she miss school," she intoned darkly in her heavy Portuguese accent. "Then she stay out all night, start with the drinking, then the drugs. She be dead before 20." Conceptua was a big fan of the worst-case scenario. "I light a candle to pray for your immortal soul."

Candy rolled her eyes. Reed stared at his nails. Conceptua shoo-ed the cats off the laundry and Bette carried on clipping coupons that she was never going to use. She'd just put them on one of the many piles of crap in the apartment and they'd stay there for ever.

"God, I can't bear to live in this dump any longer," Candy snapped and she was halfway to flouncing out of the room when her father headed her off at the pass.

"Can't sleep with all this yelling," he mumbled, scratching his spiky black hair. He paused to pick up one of the cats and wrap a long, skinny arm around Candy, as Conceptua shot him a dark look.

"Is five in the afternoon. You should not be sleeping," she announced censoriously and speeded up with the folding; her gnarled fingers making light work of Candy's polka dot bed linen.

David Careless yawned. "Yeah, well, power nap," he said vaguely before his heavy lidded eyes rested on his only child. "What's bugging you, baby?"

There was no short answer to that question and just as Candy was trying to come up with a reply that wouldn't take several hours and about a hundred swear words, Bette beat her to it.

"Oh, Candy's having a hissy fit," she said lightly. "She wants to move to London to mend her broken heart."

"My heart is not…"

"Baby, that's so Henry James," David smirked. "Can't remember which book it was but they shipped the girl with the ruined rep back to the motherland. Or was it Edith Wharton?"

"I'm going to London," Candy said forcefully. "I am and that's all there is to it. If you're all down with the goddamn dead novelists, then you should be happy that Reed'll be there to act as a chaperone."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," Conceptua said automatically as Bette actually put down her scissors and looked at her estranged son in consternation.

"Reed, I can't believe that you put this idea in her head." Bette probably thought that she sounded all reproachful and dignified, but it actually came out really whiny.

"She came up with it all by herself." Reed shrugged and still managed not to make eye contact with his mother. "And if Candy's mind is made up then short of calling out the National Guard there's nothing any of us can do about it."

Candy wriggled off David's lap because he was trying to tickle her and giggling wasn't very effective when she was meant to be laying down the law.

Bette had this look that Candy recognised. A look that meant she needed a large vodka and tonic to get through the next five minutes. Like a shark scenting blood in the water, Candy moved in for the kill.

"If you don't let me go to London, I'll… I'll…" Her voice rose perilously high as she weighed up the countless threats she had good to go. And then it hit her. She smiled triumphantly. "I'll get a lawyer and I'll divorce you and become a legally emancipated adult and then I can go where I like, do what I like and there'll be fuck all you can do about it!" Candy hadn't paused for breath once and as she stood there panting, enjoying the shocked expressions on Bette, Conceptua and even David's face, there was a cough from the corner.

"That was great, guys," said the director of At Home With The Careless. "But we need another take – we're not happy with the lighting in this scene."

Candy looked up to where the old wall of the kitchen had been until the TV production company had bought the apartments on either side and knocked through so they'd have room for their cameras and the gazillion people that needed to mill about with cups of coffee and clipboards.

"So much for fly-on-the-wall, reality TV," Reed noted sagely

"At Home With The Careless is not reality TV," Bethany, the assistant director, hissed. "It's a genre-defining, reality-based dramedy, actually."

Reed didn't look a all chastened. "I'm out of here," he said. "I'm meeting some finance guys at the Gramercy Park Hotel in half an hour."

"But we haven't wrapped the scene yet," Bette protested, but Reed was already heading for the door with a terse, "Not my problem."

"I thought we told you to make him sign a contract," one of the producers said but the director clapped his hands.

"On your marks, people. Scene five, take seven, action!"

Sneak preview of Fashionistas: Irina

I promised a sneak preview of Irina and here it is! I can't wait for you guys to get hold of a copy of this book, especially as there's a very special guest star who may well make you squeal out loud. As ever, though the book isn't officially released for a week or so, there are copies already for sale. This is because unless you're JK Rowling, book shop staff usually start putting books on the shelf as soon as they come in, never mind the actual date of publication. And it really boosts my first week sales so I've learnt not to mind. One last thing, if you have read the book ahead of the release date, please try not to give spoilers away in your comments. Anyway, on to Irina:





Irina checked the pocket of her coat again for the bulky but reassuring weight of the bolt cutters, and cast an anxious look at Sergei who was chattering animatedly to the two glacially unimpressed sales assistants

She scanned the rails for the black silk dress that Sergei's client had requested. This was the bit that Irina hated the most because she could never tell the difference between silk and satin, charcoal and grey. Actually the part she hated the most was setting foot in Kitai-gorod where everyone looked at her shabby clothes and knew that she didn't belong, even wearing the voluminous fur coat that Sergei had stolen from his grandmother.

There were three black silk dresses hanging from one rail; so understated and elegant that Irina was convinced they'd disintegrate from one touch of her grubby fingers. She grabbed the collar of the first dress, checked the size and reached into her pocket for the cutters.

"You're gorgeous," she heard Sergei say behind her. "You ever think of being a model?"

Irina scowled. She knew that he was only flirting to distract the salesgirls. And she also knew that guys like Sergei with his twinkling blues eyes and easy smile weren't interested in girls like her. But still, it was pathetic the way the sales assistants were fawning over him now, even though he looked just as out of place in their stupid, ritzy boutique as she did.

Her fingers were shaking as she manoeuvred the bolt cutters carefully between the stem of the security tag and the delicate material. Not because she was scared. Irina wasn't scared of anything but Sergei was laying it on too thick now and their cover could get blown.

"Wow! I've never seen such beautiful women." Irina shifted to one side so she could glare at the simpering sales staff and make sure that a well-dressed couple were between her and the security guard stationed at the door. Sergei would punch him when she ran for the exit, Irina assured herself as she tried to cut through the thick plastic tag.

But then Sergei's phone started ringing.

"Lilya, baby, I'm a little busy right now. Can I call you back?"

Lilya was tiny and blonde and punctuated everything she said with a high-pitched giggle. Irina yanked impatiently at the dress, which gave up the fight and tore under her impatient fingers.

She swore softly under her breath. Keep calm. Keep calm. One black silk dress was much like any other. Irina seized the next one on the rail, vaguely aware that the guard was walking towards Sergei who was badgering one of the girls to open a glass display case. They could get 1000 rubles for Prada sunglasses. It wasn't part of the plan but that's what she liked about Sergei – he was so spontaneous, so exciting and so very about to get busted.

"Leave the store now," the guard ordered tersely. "Out, or we press the panic button."

He hadn't seen her yet. Irina fumbled with the cutters again, heard Sergei remonstrate with the staff.

She felt her body grow clammy, beads of sweat popping up on her forehead as a hand clamped down on her shoulder. "Any second now, that security guard is going to see you," a voice advised her. "If I were you I'd leave the dress and come with us."

Us? The well-dressed couple had her book-ended. Irina's eyes darted wildly around and came to rest on the man's polished black shoes. He spoke Russian with an accent. The woman was younger, blonde, elegantly dressed in a soft leather coat and staring at Irina incredulously. What a bitch!

"Go away," she spat loud enough that the security guard slowly swung round. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

She could already see Sergei sidling towards the door, not even bothering to look back and check that she was OK. Then he was gone, an indistinct blur streaking past the window and she was on her own with the guard striding towards her. They didn't carry guns, Irina was pretty sure about that. Not here where the rich came to shop. Though you could never tell with the private security firms.

Irina tried to put the dress back on the rail; wrinkling it in her sweaty hands, messing it up like she did everything. "I… I…" the words were stuck in her throat, but the woman was calmly shielding her from view, taking the bolt cutters out of Irina's hands and dropping them into a capacious Gucci tote.

"Do something, Henri," she hissed in English. "And do it quickly."

Henri was already pushing Irina towards the sales desk. He presented the dress that she'd already torn with a flourish. "I'm terribly sorry but my niece has had a small accident. We'll pay for it, of course."

Irina waited until he was taking a credit card out of his wallet, before she bolted, the worn soles of her trainers skidding across the highly polished marble floor, but the blonde woman was blocking her exit.

"Don't even think about it," she rapped out. "Just stay there and smile and remember to thank your 'uncle' for getting you out of this mess."

Her 'uncle' had a stiff cardboard bag in his hand, as he nodded his head at the staff before hurrying over to them. "Let's get the hell out of here," he gritted between clenched teeth as they bundled Irina out of the door.

"What do you want from me?" she demanded brusquely, trying to wrench away from them as soon as they got outside. "You want me to pay you back for the dress, huh? How do you want me to do that?"

She knew about rich tourists. There were girls that hung around on the edges of Sergei's gang who'd come into the city and go to the fancy bars attached to the biggest hotels. They came back the next day with tearstains, bruised lips and fistfuls of dollars.

The woman was pulling Irina into the weak sunshine spilling down on Tretyakov Drive. There was nowhere to hide from two pairs of beady eyes that swept over the moth-eaten fur coat, the grubby tracksuit bottoms and trainers poking out from under the hem and Irina's face. Her stupid, sallow face with the blotchy brown marks all over it.

Irina sized them up – the woman could easily be knocked over, but Henri was tall and she could feel the tensile strength in his hand as he kept a tight grip on her arm. "I didn't ask you to pay for the dress," Irina insisted again.

It was like her words were made out of air. They simply brushed them away and continued to stare at her.

"Have you ever seen cheekbones like hers?" the woman said in English because they thought she was some dumb hick. "And she's tall."

"Thin too," the man added, actually daring to pull back the side of her coat, even as Irina hissed at him. "Rangy, she's got long legs."

Any moment now, Sergei would roar up on his bike. Except Sergei was probably halfway to St Petersburg by now and Irina was on her own. They didn't know that she could speak English and that was something at least that she could use to her advantage. Maybe even take the woman's bag while she was at it.

All Irina needed was to come up with a plan while they talked about her like she was a slab of meat on the butcher's block.

"I wonder how she photographs," the woman was saying and Irina couldn't help the shudder that ran through her. Everyone knew a girl who'd gone off to Sweden or Germany or Switzerland with a rich foreigner who'd promised her a passport and they were never heard of again. Sergei said that they got sold into prostitution rings. They'd sit there wide-eyed, listening to him go into lurid details. Then he'd ruffle Irina's hair. "Not like you have to worry about that," he'd say. "You'd have to pay them." And they'd all laugh. And Irina would laugh too, though actually she didn't think it was that funny.

"I'm going now," she said decisively, because the icy panic washing over her was making it hard to think clearly. "Get your hands off me or I'll scream."

She'd never screamed in her life but they didn't know that.

But they weren't letting go, instead the man nodded and the woman turned to her with a smile. "Tell me something, have you ever thought about being a model?"

I've been less and I've been more...

I know. I know! I haven't updated in ages. Mostly because I've been working flat-out on the final book in the Fashionistas series, Candy. I finished the first draft yesterday (I don't get to have the weekends off) and now I'm just about to start re-writing the whole thing and hoping that I can deliver it in time for the final deadline. Ho hum!

Apart from that my life has become incredibly boring. Apart from the occasional trip to Primark, I haven't been doing much. The new Rilo Kiley and the old Feist albums are in constant rotation. I've been reading the entire oeuvre of a novelist called Patrick Hamilton, which are all set between the wars and feature desperate alcoholics and ladies of easy virtue and mya be responsible for my current state of ennui (translation: Meh!) I also really need to stop playing so much Scrabulous on Facebook.

I will have some exciting news soon about various things that are in the pipeline. Some of them will thrill you. Some of them may not but them's there the breaks.

What I would like to share with you is the cover of the third Fashionistas book, Irina. There it is at the top of the post! And also tell you that the current synopsis up on amazon.co.uk is not the right synopsis at all and is littered with typos and just plain, bad wrongness. This is the official synopsis:

Irina used to steal designer clothes from Moscow's best stores. Now she's living in London and modelling them in the pages of glossy fashion magazines. Nothing and no one is going to stop her from becoming the world's most famous supermodel. Especially not her three really lame flatmates.
But hooking up with gorgeous photographer’s assistant Javier and getting on the wrong side of top model, Caroline Knight, isn't part of her plan. Will Irina drop the diva act and let her heart rule her head just this once?


I'm also way behind on replying to MySpace messages, so I'm going to have to write a form reply letting people know that their usual queries (why is there no sequel to Guitar Girl/Diary Of A Crush/Let's Get Lost etc) can be found in the tags on this here blog.

And also still no news about a US publisher for Fashionistas. I'm as pissed off as you guys about that, but if there is any news on that front, you'll be the first to know, I promise!


Live on


Sarra x

The loneliness of the long distance writer...

Hey pop kids

I realise I haven't updated in an age. I wish I could report that I've been off doing all manner of impossibly glamorous things, but sadly that's not the case.

What I have been doing is writing so much that I'm surprised my fingers aren't little bloody stumps. The third book in the Fashionistas series, Irina, has been delivered but its release has been put back to May 2008 because of some snarl ups with the cover. And I'm in the middle of writing Candy, which is the first book that I've ever delivered late. I'm usually very conscientious when it comes to deadlines but, quite frankly, if she's done by the end of the year, it will be a freaking miracle on the scale of the loaves and the fishes!

The Fashionistas series is available in Australia and New Zealand - all my UK releases are automatically published in the Antipodes. I've also secured some foreign rights deals and so the series will be published in France, Germany, The Netherlands and Denmark. I've also just heard that Diary Of A Crush is going to be translated into Italian, which I'm very excited about. What I'm not so excited about is that I still have no news to report on a US release of Fashionistas. Currently, I don't have an American publisher so I don't forsee this situation being resolved quickly. However, Fashionistas Laura and Hadley are available on amazon.com and would make wonderful Chrismukkah gifts!

And in a weird series of events, I do have something coming out next year that will only be available in the US. It's not actually a book and I can't give you any details at the moment, but I haven't forgotten my US fanbase.

I've also been doing a lot of freelance writing for ELLE and, more recently, Grazia. If you get the current issue with Jennifer Aniston on the cover, there's an interview I did with the wonderful Kate Nash, who I have such a girl crush on. All this busy-ness means that I have a huge backlog of MySpace messages that I doubt I'm going to get a chance to reply to. As ever, my blogs on blogspot and MySpace are the best way to get all my news and most of your questions have already been answered if you have a look at the tags on the blogspot blog.

Of course, I'd probably be a lot more efficient if I didn't play so much Scrabulous on Facebook. Talking of which, I pretty much friend everyone back on MySpace but Facebook is the little corner of the interweb that I use for people who I know in real life so please don't be offended if I don't friend you back on there.

And now, since I went on a six mile (what was I thinking?!) walk this morning, I'm going to tuck into a completely guilt-free Belgian chocolate brownie. And ain't nothing on earth gonna stop me!

Live on


Sarra x

SNEAK PREVIEW! Fashionistas: Hadley!

Officially out on September 20th (though it seems to be available from most good bookshops and amazon.co.uk now, which isn't something I'm losing any sleep over), here is a small taste of Hadley Harlow to whet your appetites:


Hadley didn't believe in what might have beens. It was better to regret something you had done, than something you hadn't. That's what her yogi used to tell her. But then her yogi hadn't witnessed the moment that George and Candy first laid eyes on each other. If he had, he'd have given up on Buddhism and started stock-piling canned goods for the inevitable apocalypse.

"Oh my God, girlfriend!" George squealed, when he caught sight of Candy emerging from behind the velvet rope. "I fricking worship you, you foul-mouthed little bitch!"

"I love you too!" Candy threw her arms around George as the cameras started flashing. "You're the funniest thing in that lame-ass sitcom."

Hadley impatiently tapped her foot and waited for Candy to back away from her pretend boyfriend.

In the end, she had no choice but to trail after them, like the original third wheel, as they made their way up to the VIP area. To add insult to injury, Candy and George sailed past the door whore without a backward glance while she was forced to insist sweetly that, yes, she was on the guest list, thank you very much.

"… nightmare, Candy," she heard George say, as she caught up with them. "Used to step on all my cues and then Momzilla, that's what we called Amber on set, banned all baked goods because Hadley might get super-fat."

"I'm wheat intolerant," Hadley said icily, sliding into the booth. "And I never stepped on your cues."

"Take the stick out of your butt, Hadders," Candy advised, flagging down a waitress who deposited a tray full of garishly coloured drinks on the table. "It worked out OK in the end, didn't it?"

"How did it work out OK?" Hadley took a dubious sniff at one of the drinks and nearly got impaled on a stray cocktail umbrella. After her foray into champagne and the monster headache she'd had the next day, she was living alcohol-free.

"Well, you and George are love's young dream," Candy said archly, nudging George who giggled. "I mean, get a room, you two!"

That was obviously meant to be a joke as they were sitting miles apart but Hadley forced herself to turn her frown upside down and smile lovingly at George who pulled a face.

"Hadley's all right," he said grudgingly. "But, hey, don't you think she's really bossy under that fluffy exterior? She's all, like, hug me there's a photographer or don't act so gay when people are around." George clapped his hand over his mouth as he realised his monumental gaffe.

Candy's smile glittered. "But you're not gay," she pointed out. "Because you wouldn't be going out with Hadley if you were."

"Everyone in London acts gay," George hastily assured her. "It's the cool, new thing."

"Oh, really…" Trust Candy to be all suspicious-y.

"See, George acts all camp and stuff because he thinks it's funny," Hadley bit out, which was quite an achievement given the way her jaw was so tightly clenched. "Even though I've told him a million times that it's not."

George slid across the banquette so he could sling a careless arm around Hadley's shoulder. "You know I love to get a rise out of you, sweetness," he cooed, planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek. She should have got an Oscar right then for resisting the urge to squinch up her face and rub her hand over the spot that George's lips, lips of George!, had touched.

"You're so funny, darling," Hadley simpered, patting his hand and if she dug her nails in just a teensy weensy bit, then even God himself would forgive her.

"Have a drink," George whispered in her ear as Candy waved at someone on the other side of the room. "Loosen up a little bit before she begins to realise that I can't actually stand the sight of you."

"The feeling is beyond mutual," Hadley whispered back and grabbed the nearest drink, a fluoro pink concoction with a stray piece of pineapple floating forlornly in its depths. Hadley took a cautious sip.

"This has pomegranate in it," she announced, ignoring the acidic after-taste, which was more liquor-y than fruity. "That's like a superfood."

"See, it's practically a health drink," George soothed.

Candy agreed with him. "For God's sake Hadders, stop sniffing it and just chug." She took a long enthusiastic gulp from her own glass.

It definitely tasted nicer than the champagne. And the second drink, a blackberry martini, was almost approaching yummy, though the pips kept getting stuck in her teeth.

When Candy and George went off to dance, she even managed to wave them off with a carefree smile. Oooh, maybe she could get Mervyn to leak some bitter love triangle story to the gossip rags, as long as she emerged the eventual winner.

Hadley beckoned a tray-yielding waiter so she could have another blackberry martini – they really were all kinds of more-ish. She was starting to feel fuzzy round the edges. Fuzzy was good. For the first time since she sat in her lawyer's office all those months ago, the sharp, nagging anxiety had floated away.

She was just a girl with a pink flower in her hair slurping down a martini in a club in London. She didn't have to tell anyone off or do their job for them, or remember to keep her left profile away from the cameras. If this was what drinking did for you, then she was a fan.

It was all going fine, until Hadley tried to stand up and her legs registered their disapproval. She could do things in five inch heels that most girls had never even dreamt about, but suddenly balancing on them was a problem.

Her knees knocked painfully together as she cannoned off the side of the booth and into the back of someone.

"Sorry!" And that was also weird. Her teeth had gone numb. Hadley ran her tongue over them experimentally and they all seemed to be present and correct, but actually her tongue felt odd too. Like it was made of rubber.

She needed to pee and she needed to find George and she might possibly need another drink too. It took a few seconds to get her priorities in the right order and then she was stumbling down the stairs; her hand clutched tight to the rail.

Pit-stop done, (two of girls in the bathroom had broken into a tuneless rendition of Feelin' Kinda Hadley, the theme tune from Hadley's House, which Hadley had found hysterically funny) Hadley's next mission was to find her fake beau.

The problem was that George didn't really have any distinguishing features. Apart from his spectacularly smug smile and it was too dark in the club, to be able to hone in on that. Every second boy had over-gelled blonde hair and a white shirt.

"George's shirt is Comme des Garcons," Hadley muttered to herself, scanning the crowd of blonde, white-shirted boys to see if she could spot the ruffle detailing that made George totally not stand out in a crowd.

In desperation, Hadley clambered on to a chair almost putting her heel through a girl's leg, who took it with a really bad grace, and peered over people's heads.

It was no use; she still couldn't see. Hadley carefully held aloft her martini glass and climbed up on the table. It was so much better. Now she could see George and Candy whirling around like they were on So You Think You Can Dance?

"George!" Her ear-piercing shriek didn't carry over the surf guitars bursting forth from the DJ booth, but the people who were sitting around the table that she was currently standing on, still started bitching. "I'm sorry," she hissed. "But I have to find my boyfriend."

"You spill my drink, you pay for it," snarled one really surly girl who got even surlier when Hadley told her that there was a free bar if you were a celebrity.

"Are you from one of those sad-sack reality shows?" the girl said belligerently. "God, where do they find people like you?"

Standing on top of a table was not the best place to recite the highlights from your resume, but Hadley gave it her best shot.

Her audience was less than impressed. "Go fuck yourself."

"Well, there's no need to get snippy," she started to say when she felt two hands around her waist and she was lifted from the table and set on her own two, very unsteady feet. "How dare you, you…"

"Do you stand on tables at home? I'm sure Candy would have mentioned that before."

It was Reed. The man who'd manhandled her with his hands. At least her blackberry Martini was still intact. Hadley took a long, slow sip because table-hopping was thirsty work. "I've lost my boyfriend," she informed Reed gravely. "Your sister's run off with him. But he's my boyfriend. Mine." She poked Reed in the chest with her finger so he'd get the seriousness of the situation.

Instead he looked down to where her finger was prodding what felt like rock-hard abs, with a frown. "How much have you had to drink anyway?"

Hadley finished off the rest of her Blackberry martini in one defiant gulp. "You're not the boss of me. I'm the boss of me. And that whole stubble thing is so over. Would it kill you to shave?"

Reed rubbed the chin in question. "Yeah, it might."

Hadley squinted at him. In a sea of white shirts and blonde hair, he stood out like some black-clad interloper, determined not to get in to the Tiki swing of things. "Are you allergic to shaving cream?" she breathed, because, hello, freaky.

"You really can't hold your drink," Reed pronounced, deftly taking the glass out of her hand. "I thought all you LA kids were in rehab by the time you were 14. You're a real lightweight."

Hadley liked to think that she was dignified in her alleged drunkeness. "I never touched alcohol when I was younger. It would have totally stunted my physical development."

And deja ewwww! Because that made Reed remember he had a hard-earned reputation as a player to maintain and he ran his thickly lashed eyes all over her. She was obviously lacking, mostly in the breast department, because he turned away as someone touched him lightly on the shoulder.

Someone with straggly hair, gangly limbs and jutting cheekbones - obviously she was a successful model.

"Reed," the girl said in heavily accented English. "This place sucks. I want to go now."

He stroked the backs of his fingers down the girl's cheek but she pouted furiously and took a step back. "Now. We go now," she repeated emphatically.

"Will you be all right on your own?" Reed asked Hadley doubtfully. "Should I go and find someone?"

"Who would you find?" she asked, but he'd already turned away.

"Later," he called over his shoulder and she was left to go and fling her arms round George, and nudge Candy out of the way with her hip, just in time for a stray photographer to take their picture.

I must eat so many lemons...

Hello earthlings

After the wettest, soggiest summer since records began, I'm happy to report that London is finally sunshine-y and warm. Hurrah! Also, I escaped unscathed after getting run over by a bus but will never step out into the road without looking again.

On to more important topics. Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the first Fashionista's book, Laura. I know that it seems light and fluffy on the surface (and on the cover!) but like all my stories, it's about what lies beneath the masks that people wear. And I'm really grateful that so many of you understood that.

Unfortunately, I have no news to report about any US or Canadian publication date for the series. The British edition should be available on amazon.com and amazon.ca though. Austrlian and NZ readers, the series should be on sale at the usual places and there will be French, German and Dutch editions next year.

However, I am working on a little something that will only be published in the US next year. Can't say anymore at this stage but you guys will be the first to know when I can spill.

I've also done a little press for Fashionistas at two of my very favourite websites. The first interview is at pink-world.co.uk. You can find it here
and I also answered my own question, 'what does being a fashionista mean to you?' at chicklish.co.uk. You can read my thoughts here.

While I'm in a linky mood, I wanted to rec a couple of books I've read recently. I don't really read much teen fic 'cause I like to stay in my own little teen world but y'all have to rush out and get a copy of Notes From The Teenage Underground by my MySpace pal, Simmone Howell.
She's an Australian writer who tells the story of Gem and her two frenemies, Lo and Mira and their plans to stage an Andy Warholesque happening. Except it doesn't quite work out as Gem thought it would. This is such a great book about movies, how fraught friendship can be and what it feels like to be on the outside looking in. I really identified with it as I was obsessed with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick when I was a teenager.

The other book I wanted to rave about is my mate Grace Dent's Diary Of A Chav: Trainers vs. Tiaras. It's about Shiraz Bailey-Wood from Essex who's a pink hoodie-wearing chav with an emo older sister, a fat dog and ambitions to become a reality TV star. Don't read it on the bus though 'cause you'll start cackling out loud and people will think you're deranged. It's also worth checking out Grace's Big Brother blog At the moment I'm hating on Ziggy so hard.

What else? I'm listening to Kate Nash too much and spitting out words in a mockney style. Want to weep for the travesty that is Britain's Next Top Model. Need to sort out what I'm doing for my birthday next week and will be fostering a six week old kitten who needs bottle feeding while my cousin is on holiday.

I'm also writing some words that will become a book one day. Y'know, same old, same old...

Live on


Sarra x

Harry who?!

Forget about the adventures of that Potter kid and get yourself to a bookshop tomorrow when Fashionistas: Laura officially goes on sale in the UK!



fash_ion-is-ta - Noun

Pronounciation: [fash-uhn –ee-stuh]

Definition:

1. Someone who eats, sleeps, breathes and lives for fashion.
2. Someone who works in the fashion industry.
3. Someone who would never be seen dead in last season's looks



Laura isn't that surprised when she beats 12000 other girls in a nationwide modelling
competition. After all, she's beautiful and beginning a glamorous new life in London as the newest model on Fierce's books was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

But is being beautiful going to be enough? Laura never expected three fame-hungry flat-mates, sleazy photographers and a weight problem to stand between her and success in the fast-paced world of fashion.

At least she can always rely on her boyfriend Tom. But things change and will Laura have to do the unthinkable and choose between her heart and her dreams of being a model?

NOW CLOSED!!!!!!!!!!Win an advance copy of Fashionistas, book one!

EDITED TO ADD: THAT COMMENTING HAS BEEN TURNED OFF AS THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED! THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED - WINNERS WILL BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL.

Do you want me to bang on about how busy I am? Or repeat for the gazillionth time that there are no plans to ever write any more Diary Of A Crush books (for reasons explained in the tags to your left?) Or shall I just get on with the competition details? Yes, I thought so!

On Wednesday, I went to my publisher's offices and signed a box of advance copies of Laura, Fashionistas, Book One in my terrible, scrawly hand-writing. The book isn't on sale in the UK until July 17th but we want to give away 20 of the little blighters right now. Unfortunately, nothing in this life is for free so I'm going to make you work for a copy.

Leave me a comment telling me why you're a Fashionista. Be funny, be creative and don't forget to leave your email address and the 20 best answers get a book. It doesn't matter what country you live in either. One proviso, my publishers would like you to send them a review of the book once you've read it, saying what you thought of it. Hopefully, you'll like it and won't think that it sucks like a huge sucking thing. The closing date for this competition is Monday, June 25th so you have a little time to come up with a fantastic answer that will knock my Gap socks off.

I know that generally I'm crap at replying to comments but I do value all my readers and everyone who comments here and so this competition is a great way to say thank you. As the publication date creeps closer, I will be posting some sneak previews of the book but here's a reminder of what it's about and what the cover looks like - though now it's a bit pinkier and sparklier.




Beating 12,000 other girls to become the newest model on Fierce's books is Laura's dream come true. But she knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. She's gorgeous – everyone thinks so.

But once the thrill of winning has faded, Laura is alone in London, in a shoebox bedroom with three fame-hungry flatmates. Being beautiful doesn't seem enough now… not when her booker thinks she's way too fat, and her devoted boyfriend isn't the rock she thought he was.

Laura's got to make some difficult decisions. And time is running out…


Good luck!


Sarra x

Edited to add: Girls, please! As requested, leave your email address with your Why I'm A Fashionsta comments, otherwise there is no way to contact you if you've won.

Welcome to the Rockalypse...

Happy Eurovision Day readers

Tonight I will be going to a Eurovision Song Contest Party, as is my wont to do. There's going to be a Sweepstake though I will pick the country that only get a measly un point from the Slovakian jury. But I think you can either turn up your nose and be too cool for skool about Eurovision or you can embrace the cheese. I embrace it with both arms!

I also just want to remind you that I do have a MySpace and that also I've just bought a 50's clock from a charity shop, which ticks so loudly I can barely hear the TV. I just felt the need to share that.

But for now, I thought I'd post an author's questionnaire I just complete for my publishers in the run-up to the release of the first Fashionista's Book, Laura on July 17th. Be warned! I ramble on and on and on and on and on...

1. Do you consider yourself a Fashionista?

I consider myself a Fashionista of epic proportions. I love clothes and accessories. In fact, two hours before I wrote this questionnaire, I was racing round the new Primark in London's swinging Oxford Street on a seek and destroy mission for a black, broderie anglaise summer frock.

I love how clothes can transform you, how you can be whoever you want to be depending on your outfit. I'm not a diehard fashion victim, I have my own look (which I call The Lipstick Librarian) but I like adding new pieces (a lot of new pieces!) each season to bring my style up to date. And I have little truck with fashion rules, like curvy girls shouldn't wear horizontal stripes. Fashion to me is just another way of expressing myself creatively and my fashion rules are that there are no rules!

My most beloved items in my closet are a vintage fitted dress with lurex stripes and a skirt that foofs out in a delightful manner and my limited edition Marc Jacobs multi-pocket bag in peacock blue with red top-stitching. It was so expensive that I had a panic attack five seconds after I signed the credit card slip!

2. Which character in your books do you identify with the most?

I identify the most with whichever character I happen to be writing at the time. I think that there is a common thread running through all my girls of people trying to figure out who the hell they want to be and how they're going to achieve that without losing part of themselves in the process. That's how I felt when I was a teenager. I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew that I wasn't like a lot of other girls my age because of the way I looked and the music I listened to, the books I read and the things I liked to do. When I stopped kicking against that and realised that it was OK to be different, I became a lot happier in myself. So I guess I could really identify with Isabel from Let's Get Lost – not just because my mother passed away just before I started the book, but because I was so prickly and defensive when adolescence began to kick in.


3. How did you become a "Teen Queen Extraordinaire"? Was it always your dream to be a writer?

I have no idea how I became a Teen Queen Extraordinaire! Just luck, I guess! Certainly when I was a teenager, apart from loving Just Seventeen magazine (which I went on to write for), I shunned teen culture. But as I got older, I found myself obsessed and excited with things like old skool Sassy magazine and the TV show, My So-Called Life. My theory is that I made such a hash of being a teenager first time around, that I'm trying over and over again to get it right. I still feel the same away as I did when I was 17 – still trying to figure out all the big, heavy stuff and maybe that's why it feels very natural to write from the point of view of a teenage girl.

And I've always wanted to be a writer. Ever since I learnt the alphabet and suddenly realised that you could make words out of the letters. Certainly there are people who knew me when I was eight who can remember me announcing that I was going to be a writer – though I had a brief flirtation with wanting to be in a band but as I have no musical talent whatsoever, it was a very brief flirtation!

4. What is your favourite book?

I refuse to pick just one! The books that I re-read over and over again are Girl by Blake Nelson, Fabulous Nobodies by Lee Tulloch, The Pursuit Of Love and Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, all of the Jane Austens (apart from Mansfield Park because I think Fanny Price is a stuck-up little prig) and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Though I do read other stuff – anything and everything from Edith Wharton to Mills & Boon to biographies on Madame de Pompadour!

5. Who are your heroes?

Diana Vreeland who was a marvellous, idiosyncratic, eccentric woman who was editor in chief of US Vogue. I love the way she wrote about fashion and the wilful way she lived her life.
Coco Chanel because she liberated women by raising hem lengths so they no longer needed help crossing the road.
Courtney Love because she inspired me so much when I was younger. No matter what crazy stuff she pulls, there's something about Courtney and what she used to be that means I'll always be a little bit in love with her.
And Joss Whedon because he gave me Buffy and I'm probably more inspired by good TV writing than books.
I wish I had a few people in here who'd helped find a cure for cancer or campaigned for world peace, but I'm a very shallow person.

6. Are your characters ever based on people you know?

Not really. Usually it's people that I don't really know but there's something intriguing about them or what they're doing and I file them in my head and drag them out at a later date for a vignette or an incidental character. It sounds vague but for instance, I was in New York last November at a really cool restaurant called Bette's waiting for the loo next to this louche girl with the most sooty eyelashes I've ever seen and she was so full of ennui because she was beautiful that I thought, "Oh, you are so going into a book of mine!"

7. How do you get your ideas? Are they ever based on real life experiences?

They just happen. Diary Of A Crush was inspired by the two years that I spent at college after my school asked me not to go back to do A-levels. It was a time when I was changing and blossoming and that was what Edie was going through too – though I never had a Dylan. Let's Get Lost was directly inspired by losing my mother and thinking to myself how much worse it would be to lose a parent when you were a teenager and in the middle of that process of pushing your parents away so you can learn to be your own person. But Fashionistas, my new series, is inspired by everything that's going on around me in the world; from America's Next Top Model to car-crash celebrities to New York to the size zero debate to reality TV stars to Project Runway to walking past shops selling Saris to internet It girls to Agyness Deyn to post-Communist Russia! Everything inspires me and causes my imagination to almost implode and I wouldn't have it any other way.

8. What is your favourite band? Does music ever inspire your writing?

The bands I never, ever get bored of are Belle And Sebastian, Saint Etienne, Velvet Underground, Hello Saferide (a new addition but she's a keeper) and my Growin' Up Too Fast 60's girl group collection. At the moment I'm listening to a lot of Swedish bands and old French pop – I'm very Continental!

Music is a huge part of my writing process. Sometimes one song becomes a theme for a book (like Broken Social Scene's Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl was for Let's Get Lost) but I always make a playlist for my main character and listen to it while I'm writing. It's hard at the moment as I'm writing Irina, the third book in the Fashionistas, and she's a Russian girl who listens to rap music, which I don't know much about.

9. Do you have any regrets?

Yes, but it's for the things I didn't do, not the things I did. Which is just how it should be!