Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

sat up until midnight waiting for Jake to ring, but he didn’t. I rang Heathrow to make sure his plane hadn’t crashed. It hadn’t. I called his phone a few times but I just got an odd beeping noise and then silence. I went to bed feeling miserable. I woke briefly at three in the morning. There were three texts on my phone.
    Joe is going to be a footballer, no doubt. Won’t stopkicking. See you tomorrow xx Ali
    Last night at 6A Venn St? Thinking of you. NY groovy xx Jude
    And finally:
    Sorry didn’t ring earlier. Signal patchy. Hellishly hot here. I miss you xxxxx Jake
    When I finally woke up the sun was shining through the blinds and the removals men were ringing the doorbell. I threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and opened the door to two strapping young Australians wishing me a cheery ‘G’day’. They were remarkably efficient – the entire place was cleaned out by nine thirty.
    I took one last final tour of the place before I left. Oddly enough, it seemed smaller with the furniture gone than it had with everything in it. I was standing in the hallway, staring into the bathroom, remembering the first time I’d ever laid eyes on Jake, the time he’d nearly cracked my head open with the door, when one of the Australians, the particularly attractive one, called out, ‘This the last one, love?’ He was just picking up the final couple of boxes, one filled with papers and the other, a shoebox containing my Louboutins.
    ‘Oh, leave those,’ I said, taking the box from him. ‘They’re not coming with me.’ I thought for a moment about chucking them in the bin, but decided instead to leave them on the kitchen counter. You never know, the next girl to move in might just be my size.

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    The Popularity Rules
     
    Abby McDonald
     
    Rule 1: All’s fair in love, war and popularity …
    Kat Elliot is no social butterfly: she’s spent her life rebelling against phony schmoozing – and it’s led her nowhere. Just as she’s ready to give up her dreams and admit defeat, in steps Lauren Anderville. One-time allies against their school bullies, Lauren and Kat had been inseparable. Then one year Lauren returned from summer camp blonde, bubbly and suddenly popular, and Kat was left to face the world alone.
    Ten years later, Lauren’s back. She wants to make amends by teaching Kat the secret to her success: The Popularity Rules. A decades-old rulebook, its secrets transformed Lauren that fateful summer. And so, tempted by Lauren’s promises of glitzy parties and the job she’s always dreamed of, Kat reluctantly submits to a total makeover – only to find that life with the in-crowd might have something going for it after all.
    But while Lauren has sacrificed everything to get ahead, is Kat really ready to accept that popularity is the only prize that counts?

     

 
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    The Fabulously Fashionable
Life of Isabel Bookbinder
     
    Holly McQueen
     
    When aspiring designer Isabel Bookbinder bags a job with Nancy ‘Fashion Aristocracy’ Tavistock, she’s sure her career is finally on track. Dazzlingly glamorous, this is a world that she feels truly passionate about – after all, she knows her Geiger from her Louboutin, her Primark from her Prada, and she’s always poring over fashion magazines. Well, ok, the fashion pages of heat .
    So, learning from the very best, the future’s looking bright for Isabel Bookbinder: Top International Fashion Designer. Within days she’s putting the final touches to her debut collection, has dreamt up a perfume line, Isabelissimo , and is very nearly a friend of John Galliano. And on top of that she might even have fallen in love.
    Yet nothing ever runs smoothly for Isabel and fabulously fashionabe as her life is, it soon seems to be spiralling a little out of her control …
    Praise for Holly McQueen:
    ‘Marvellously funny’ Jilly Cooper
    ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin: if you like Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic books and you miss Bridget Jones, then meet Isabel’ Louise Bagshawe, Mail on Sunday

     

 
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