The Flirt is almost a collection of mini-stories in one. It follows the lives of several very well-to-do people living in London, their lives and their loves. The characters range from a billionaire's wife, to a bespoke Lingerie designer, to The Flirt himself. There are also more characters interweaved throughout the story who crop up regularly in the book. Hughie Venables-Smythes, a young twenty-something wannabe actor gets recruited to be a professional 'flirt'and is sent all over London flirting with women and making them happy.
Leticia Vane is a bespoke Lingerie designer, who despite outwardly appearances is living alone, eating just one meal a day to stay thin and is actually quite a sad character. Socialite Olivia Bourgalt de Coudray is married to a Tennis Ball mogul, but is living a secluded life, stuck in her billion-pound mansion with not much to do. So when the opportunity arises to help with an art gallery, Olivia grabs the chance with both hands.
As you can see the character names in the book aren't really names you would come across in everyday life, and this is reflected in the lives of the characters and also their personalities in this book. This does create real escapist fiction, as you are transported into the world of these rich high-flying people, and although on the surface they seem to have everything they could want, you see their deepest desires and troubles, which makes for interesting reading.
The characters were well-developed and easy to follow, which is good because there are quite few characters in this book as well as the main ones - friends of Olivia; an upcoming artist/single mother Rose 'Red' Moriarty, Sam the Plumber, Henry, Jez and Marco, fellow flirts of Hughie...I could go on! So it was imperitive the author made them interesting and easy to follow which I think she has done remarkably well.
The story itself is divided into very short chapters, ranging from just 2 pages in length to 5 or 6. The title of each chapter hints to something happening in that chapter, and I found them a good divider between characters also, as I found no immediately following chapters followed the same characters. It is well-written, witty and funny to read and thoroughly enjoyable. I also found that this being written in the third-person made it easier to read, given the scope of characters, first person would have been just too confusing!
Again though I must point out excessive, and unnecessary use of, in my opinion, the most awful word in the English language, the C-Word. I don't think it is nice, it didn't add anything to the book and seemed out of place coming from the mouths of these well-off characters. It is actually this which has caused the book to lose 1 star from me, as if she had not written in this way, it would most certainly warrant 5 stars from me!
So overall, I think this is a very good introduction into the works of Kathleen Tessaro if you haven't read her previous novels like me, and I expect something fans of her will also enjoy. As mentioned, do expect some coarse language, but this seems to be commonplace in most books these days. I was really gripped by this one, I struggled to put it down and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone (though perhaps not the feint-hearted due to some sexual scenes and the c-word!). A real piece of escapist women's fiction, and jolly good fun.
Rating: 4/5
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