“When
you’re
young and carefree,
trouble seems so far away and Lou
Cairney certainly lived life to the full
while growing up with her two best
friends, Lizzy and Ginger — but years
later reality hits and the shadow of
tragedy looms in Shari Low’s latest
witty page-turning novel, Friday Night
With The Girls...”
THREE INSEPARABLE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS who have led a crazy, colourful life
reminisce over the thirty years they have supported and cared for each other
when Ginger treats Lou and Lizzy to a spa break at an exclusive Glasgow hotel
for a particular, disturbing reason in Friday Night With The Girls by
Shari Low.
Harking back over the decades to their teenaged years, the three friends recall
their innocent youth; their dreams, career mistakes, friendship, dramas, disasters,
dodgy boyfriends, awesomely-bad hairstyles and Lou's encounter with the suspect
Gary Collins, now a high-profile singer, who is fated to reappear in her future.
And their important, not-to-be-missed, Friday Night With The Girls.
But a traumatic awakening disturbs the girls' seemingly bullet-proof existence.
In the carefree days of misspent youth, laughter played a big part in their
lives and life was never taken too seriously. They survived it all, thanks to
love, hope and a massive helping of humour. And cocktails… Lots of cocktails.
But the past is catching up with the friends and someone is having to re-evaluate
her life.
In a series of flashbacks starting in 1986, when Ginger, Lou and Lizzy are 16-year-olds
out to have Fun, Shari cleverly weaves a story of friendship, love and compassion,
under-age drinking, crushes on Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer and important things
like strutting their stuff in white stilettos while "looking good" wearing thick
make-up and the deepest of tans.
Throw in an unfortunate brush with the law, iffy parenting, falling in-and-out
of love, Lou's two-timing experiences, a chaotic launch of her own salon and
a close-call in New York's Central Park and you get the picture. Through it
all, Lou has the never-ending support of her gem of an aunt, the straight-talking
Josie — one of my favourite characters from Shari Low'sTemptation
Street.
Bringing the three friends forward to the present in the classy Glasgow hotel,
we discover how the three have fared: the tall, redheaded and buxom Ginger who
yearned to be famous; the family-orientated Lizzy who takes everything in her
stride; and the gutsy, kind-hearted, modest and determined Lou.
One of the three needs her friends more than ever before because her past has
frighteningly caught up with her. Everyone makes mistakes, but the girls discover
that a seemingly innocent vanity was the biggest one of all…
Brilliantly witty and fluidly written, I could not put this book down: Friday
Night With The Girls is for girls who just want to have Fun!
•
Shari
Low's Friday Night With The Girls is published in paperback by Piatkus
on 13 October 2011. RRP: £7.99; ISBN: 9780749952167.
"Brilliantly witty and fluidly written, I could not put this book down: Friday
Night With The Girls is for girls who just want to have Fun!" — Maggie
Woods, MotorBar
"There are only two words for Shari Low: utterly hilarious. I laughed like a
drain" — Carmen Reid
"More fun than a girl's night out" — OK!
"Totally captivating and it felt like I'd lost a new best friend when it came
to the end" — Closer
"You should write it all down, Lou, so that your daughter can understand what
happened. Everything. Right from the start" — Friday Night With The
Girls
“When
you’re
young and carefree,