Lorraine Kelly on Woman's Hour, plugging her new novel...

[WinterTrees]

Oh joy - Lorraine Kelly has decided to bless the literary world with her particular brand of perkiness in fictional form. Anita Rani (of course) in full fawning mode, expressing wide-eyed delight that it's been endorsed by Marian Keyes (as if celebrities don't all quote on each other's books because it's all a back-scratching club) and that one of the main characters - in a wild swimming club no less - is Freya, who started life as Magnus, 'a wee boy'. Lorraine making much of 'women supporting women' and 'being accepted for who you are' 'being allowed to live as yourself' etc etc.

It's annoying enough that another TV celebrity with no writing background has been given a premier publishing slot with the marketing budget, PR platform and retail shelf space that will now not be available to writers who make an increasingly precarious living from books. Even more galling that she's used this uneven playing field to promote her luxury beliefs and transmit her virtue signalling to a captive audience in a cosy, twee fictional setting where the likes of Isla Bryson and Amy George can be conveniently airbrushed out of existence. And to pretend she cares about empowering women.

why do think authors think women want to read all this misogynistic clap trap?
I mentally file this under “not worth the bother” along beside the ‘50 shades of grey” bullshite that was all the range a decade ago.

😆😆that extract is cringe

Are there still awards for bad fiction? With luck, this book will sweep the board.

What the actual Fuck.

Is she just jumping on any bandwagon now? She should be embarrassed about herself, but I supposed she's been bigged up by her fellow TV cronies as a Daytime Telly Queen and supposed National Treasure, I guess you start to believe your own hype, eh?

Nonplussed...
Bad writing, bad editing.

What the hell is that crap?! Poor "Freya" stunning and brave.. why are they never called Barbara or Angela 😏

She's confused between the traditional meaning, and the new informal meaning in US vernacular. An editor really should have spotted that.
What's Going On With 'Nonplussed'? | Merriam-Webster

What?? Steve Bruce writes detective novels? Fucking Nora. I'm guessing they are as bad as his football management skills. Useless shite that he was.

I can't stand her either.
She just seems so smug.
I've just read an interview she did with
Laura Pullman in the Sunday Times magazine.
It was a real puff piece which I hate like the ones you see in Good Housekeeping and Woman and Home. 🙄
So unlike the Nigel Farage interview by Decca Aitkenhead in the same issue.

No, it’s not either of those two, it’s a new tax entity who’s identifying as a writer!

Magnus has always paddled his own canoe

Let’s hope he plans to keep that canoe.

How on earth has this woman managed to stay on tv for 40yrs-total mystery. What a dullard!

Is that the one he keeps in his pocket?

This structure - the group of women brought together by a hobby- seems to be the go to for the celeb novel. Sara Cox did a pottery one, Giovanna Fletcher did a walking group and now we have wild swimming.

How coincidental that they all had the same idea! Reality is this is super easy to write as you just need to create a back story for 6 characters then some kind of event to bring the ones who seem like opposites together in a heart warming fashion. No complicating plotting required.

Written when he was manager of Huddersfield and described as 'a bewildering trilogy of murder-mystery novels'.

JFC

Ugh! Just ugh!

Blimming eck that's bad. But writing badly, and/or writing a load of twee cheesy cliches, is no obstacle to selling well.

I did hear the interview and honestly I thought LK was just showing how clueless and ignorant she is, but well-meaning and wanting to get it right and thinking she's really inclusive and progressive. It shows you how many women are still out there genuinely believing that being trans is all about being a poor sad person who's born in the wrong body, and always prioritising TW as the loveliest, most genuine and loveable women ever - while ignoring not only those males who clearly abuse self-ID and/or who may genuinely ID as trans but are far from nice to women, but also TM. Trans means lovely, sweet TW and fawning over them is how you show you're a good woman/person. I had no doubt listening to her, that she really thinks that. It's the "I'm not old-fashioned like other fuddy-duddies my age!" phenomenon.

And so of course people who have lapped this up will also lap up the dogma that anyone who has doubts or concerns, or who thinks women should have sex-based rights that exclude TW, is just plain old nasty, bigoted and "anti-trans". and so must not be listened to.

Amazing I heard it really as I often turn off WH in a rage/irritation/boredom these days, unless it's Emma grilling someone deluded with the white heat of reality.

That'll be the puberty blockers stunting their growth.

Despite knowing I'll never read this tripe, I do hope, for her readers' sake, that she hasn't included any sex scenes.

Can you imagine what she's like to live with? Her daughter usually looks mortified by her on Gogglebox.

It must be the new version of the woman who leaves a corporate job/ an abusive relationship and moves to the countryside/ seaside (possibly following an inheritance) and sets up a sweet shop/ bakery / café, and has an affair with a mysterious village resident.

Imagine putting your name to that.

Is there some kind of make a flop make money trick like The Producers?!!??

Ghastly woman her fake voice makes me want to scream (I'm Scottish) but at least matches the rest of her.

I am intrigued that in fiction, male transitioners tend to be of average female height.

Yes that seemed like overkill - an attempt to drive home how well Freya blends in and how unthreatening Freya is, in case anyone was worried.

Actually, I have been pondering about how TW almost always seem to be fairly tall males while TM almost always seem to be shorter females. I wonder what the average heights are bfor both and how they compare to the general population. But that's another discussion. However the unrealisticness of that did jump out at me.

It must be the new version of the woman who leaves a corporate job/ an abusive relationship and moves to the countryside/ seaside (possibly following an inheritance) and sets up a sweet shop/ bakery / café, and has an affair with a mysterious village resident.

Ah yes she's the one who always looks despairingly in the mirror at her too-wild curls and overfull bosom wondering if any man will want her