Looking for 'Chap Last'

Thinkless by Sophie McCook

It’s not often that I respond to a direct request from an author to review their book, but Sophie McCook wrote me a lovely note and she and her book sounded worth investigating. Thinkless comes from small publisher Limehouse Books in London, and Sophie who is based in Scotland has written for radio, TV and a wide range of other media and productions.

Actually once I saw the book’s cover on the Limehouse website, I was won over already. What you can’t see clearly in the small version to your left is, that amongst the tousled curls of the girl are words – see the detail below:

Capricious, Fickle, Undependable, Lovelorn, Naive and Mercenary are just some of these words – and they are all used to describe the main character – not usually all at once – but certainly in multiples! Miriam Short is in a real tangle (sorry!) – we’d better meet her …

I’m of no fixed salary, abode or career. I live in the moment, which I hear is very spiritual. The trouble is, the moments keep happening. I’m one long moment.
My ex-boyfriend maintains a holding pattern around my brain. Who knows when this obsession will end? Let’s call him Chap 1. All communication between us stopped. …
This black hole in my head is gradually growing. It’s sucking in the horizon and all the time, the city heat increases. I stuff Kleenex down my bra to stop the sweat river. I don’t have a fan. I have to get out of here.

Miriam is her father’s middle child. In her late twenties, she has an older sister and a younger brother – both by different mothers. Her father is currently with ‘Wife-to-be-Number-Four’. Having recently split up with her boyfriend, she’s reliant on her successful little brother to help her out by loaning her his flat while he’s off on business for she’s jobless and broke. It’s high summer though, London is sweltering, and the break-up with Chap 1 still hurts too much. When she sees an advert for a house/cat-sitter for three months, she sees a chance to escape.

So Miriam ends up in a hamlet called Toft Monks in Norfolk, cat-sitting for Marjory, who lives with her cats and many dogs in a tiny cottage full of blue things and dog-hair near Toft Hall, the local Manor. Luckily Marjory takes the dogs with her and leaves strict instructions about the Good Cats and the Bad Cat which can never be in the house at the same time.

To cut a long story short, it’s not long before Miriam meets the inhabitants of Toft Hall. There are two brothers: Kit, who’ll charm a woman into bed in moments it seems and Wym, who looks after the Hall and farm.  Then there’s Lord Hebbindon, known as Prop, their ageing father who is more than a little touched it seems and hates his wife the Marchese … As Kit is now Chap 2 (sic), Miriam asks him about their father…

‘But why is Prop Prop?’
‘Oh his name deserves a blue plaque. When he was seven, Prop and his father went hill-walking in North Wales with Lloyd George. Young Prop was the right height for the former Prime Minister to lean his elbow on, and he was leant on all the way up the mountain. From then on, he was a Prop.’
Aww.
I lie in his arms and shuffle through my brain index card and find this situation amazing. If sex were top-trumps, I feel I’ve scored well.
‘So in general, is it better being rich or being a Lord?’
Kit jumps on me.
‘You mercenary little cow!’

Miriam may project a laddette-ish attitude, but is she a gold-digger?  She would have you believe it’s much more complicated but, as the lost middle-child of a very dysfunctional family herself all she really needs is direction and to find that Chap Last – her true love.

Of course, this is a rom-com and things will get far more complicated before they can begin to detangle (to continue the hair analogies!), especially once Miriam’s sister turns up on the scene. Eventually we’ll get to see all the main characters for who they really are – there’s not so much of a difference between them and us in this novel as you may think. Of course we hope that all’s well that ends well too but we can have a chuckle along the way!

I thoroughly enjoyed Thinkless – it’s a comedy blend akin to Jilly Cooper meets The Archers with added London sassiness. Being a South Londoner myself and having survived living in Norfolk for two years at the start of my working career, I could strongly identify with Miriam’s fish out of water situation. Living there didn’t suit me – but maybe in this novel Miriam is ready?  Great fun. (7.5/10)

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Source: Author – Thank you and good luck with the book!
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Thinkless by Sophie McCook. Pub Sept 2014 by Limehouse Books, trade paperback, 288 pages.

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