It Could Be You - Josie Lloyd

Nope, despite the title, “It Could Be You” isn’t an expose of the National Lottery; it is instead the debut novel of Josie Lloyd. Not quite sure what the title means, because the central character in this novel (Charlie Bright: “bright, funny and on the fast track in her advertising job”) definitely couldn’t be me, she’s about a million miles from me, but we’ll let that pass for now. There is a very tenuous link with scratch cards as one of the plot lines in the novel so that must be it. You might be more familiar with the work of Josie Lloyd in the context of her partnership with Emlyn Rees in the hugely ...  Read the complete review

This was the first novel from Josie Lloyd, who later went on to partner-up with Emlyn Rees and knock out the superb Come Together and decent Come Again. And it shows. Much of what you see here comes across as a practice run for those subsequent novels. The character development and style of writing is nowhere near as good but the similarities are obvious. Unfortunately, this 'first novel' really isn't publication-quality. The most interesting characters of this novel, Charlie's best friend Kate and flatmate Rich, are left in the background for far too long whilst the most uninteresting and perhaps unrealistic characters (and that includes Charlie ...  Read the complete review