Woman of the Hour - Jane Lythell

I knew of this author through a Facebook group called Book Connectors and then I was lucky enough to meet her at a little local event called the Guildford Book Festival back in October. Hearing Jane talk about both herself and her book, Woman of the Hour, I was intrigued, so I was delighted when she very kindly offered to send me a review copy.

Woman of the Hour is set in the fictitious television world called StoryWorld, a popular morning show with features, celebrity guests and other topical content. Liz Lyons is the head of features and it's her job to keep the show at the top of the ratings whilst also making sure that all the backstabbing and scandals are kept firmly behind the scenes as well as trying to be there for her fourteen-year-old daughter Flo.

Liz has worked there for seventeen years and has worked her way up from being a junior researcher to her current role and is unofficially seen as the mother hen, pandering to the guests every whims and making sure that her team are all happy, which is quite often a challenge but she is fiercely loyal to them.

In the background of the main story there are some clever sub-plots which include Fizzy, the shows main presenter, Harriet, the intern who is only there because her father pulled some strings and Julius, the stations director behind the shows cheesy tag line "Real people, real life, real stories live".

With a diverse cast of larger than life characters, this is a book full of drama, ego's, tension, sexism,  blackmail, relationships. . . .  I could go on but I think you get the gist, this book has it all.

I really enjoyed the fact that the story was told in alternating chapters going from Liz's work to home life and I felt that it was a great way to keep the story ticking along nicely and more than kept my interest.Reading Woman of the Hour it's obvious that Jane has drawn on her own personal experiences of being in this world that most of us can only imagine and she has dexterously created some wonderful three-dimensional characters that  I was totally engaged with from start to finish. I was thrilled to find out that this is the first book of a trilogy and I can't wait for the next visit to StoryWorld to get reacquainted with these fascinating people.

With kind thanks to author Jane Lythell and publishers Head of Zeus for the review copy.