How to be Famous

The hilarious, big-hearted, no-holds-barred sequel to Cailtin Moran’s bestselling debut novel How to Build a Girl.

I’m Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde), and I live in London in 1995, at the epicentre of Britpop. I might only be nineteen, but I'm wise enough to know that everyone around me is handling fame very, very badly.

My unrequited love, John Kite, has scored an unexpected Number One album, then exploded into a Booze And Drugs Hell - as rock-stars do. And my new best friend - the maverick feminist Suzanne Banks, of The Branks - has amazing hair, but writer's block and a rampant pill problem.

So I've decided I should become a Fame Doctor. I'm going to use my new monthly column for The Face to write about every ridiculous, surreal, amazing aspect of a million people knowing your name.

But when my two-night-stand with edgy comedian Jerry Sharp goes wrong, people start to know my name for all the wrong reasons. 'He's a vampire. He destroys bright young girls. Also, he's a total dick', Suzanne warned me. But by that point, I'd already had sex with him. Bad sex.

Now I'm one of the girls he's trying to destroy.

He needs to be stopped.

But how can one woman stop a bad, famous, powerful man?

Set three decades before #metoo How to Be Famous is a wry, quick-witted and painfully honest novel about fame, fortune and female friendship. Part feminist-comedy, part Britpop romance, it’s alive with all the energy, heartache and resilience of being young, free and reckless. An unbridled delight.