The characters in this book are works of fiction. But, then, isn’t everyone...? 2018 James is a ghost writer: it’s his job to step into other people’s shoes; to tell their stories for them. And he’s good at it. Very good. But then he’s had years of practice at pretending to be someone he’s not. 1988, Pencalenick, Cornwall At seventeen, Jason wants so much more from life than working at his father’s pub, and when fate – in the form of twins Daisy and Bea and their small circle of friends, staying in Cornwall for the summer – offers him a glimpse of another, more glamorous, world, he’s determined to become a part of it. It’s Daisy who Jason is most entranced by, though. Everyone is: she’s the sun around which others orbit. The trouble with the sun, of course, is that those who get too close risk getting burned – and by end of the summer, one of the group will be dead. Opening as James is asked to work with Daisy – by now a famous actress – on her autobiography, Joanna Nadin’s The Double Life of Daisy Hemmings is a unflinching, unforgettable novel about the people we are and the people we’d like to be, and how sometimes the lines between the two become so blurred that even we forget which is real and which is a lie.
Author
Joanna Nadin is an English author of juvenile fiction best known for the Rachel Riley series of teenage novels Based on Nadin's own childhood, the series follows the comedic narration of a 13-year-old girl. Nadin has also written several books of juvenile fiction. These include two books for the Oxford University Press "Project X" series designed to encourage boys to read. Nadin previously worked as a policy writer for the Labour Party (UK).In 2001, she became a special adviser to Tony Blair. As a child I buried myself in books both at home in Essex and at my grandparents’ houses in Cornwall, where I spent a large part of my time, and where many of my stories are now set. Books and later films were an escape not just from where I was but who I was, which, as I saw it, was pretty much a geek. They gave me the freedom to become someone else, from George in the Famous Five to Velvet Brown winning the Grand National to Baby dancing the Chachacha with Johnny Castle.
