Books by and for independent women

After My Own Heart by Sophia Blackwell

Printed in the back cover is the simple mission statement of Limehouse Books: ‘To publish books for people who don’t read’, whether this be through a lack of time, a lack of direction, or a lack of provision.

A big fan of anything DIY, it was this admirable ethos that kept me turning pages at times when the undulating plot of dipped to just the wrong side of dragging.

Having been just dumped by her girlfriend for a leggy blonde whom she thought was a friend (they ruin straight and gay relationships apparently), tackling the emotional minefield of her best friend/ex’s wedding, being seduced by a gorgeous burlesque dancer and quietly seduced by her new subtlety pretty flatmate, Evie takes the most sensible decision in these situations – to sleep with her best male friend whom she’s known since school.

There are a few too many threads flapping about, and as much as Evie enamours herself to the reader, the floating cast of characters means that it is difficult to really being deeply involved.

However, this does mean that the reader can not start rooting for any one relationship or get a sense of what the right path is, and in this Sophia has demonstrated one of the perils of love in real life.

A vivid colour scheme is employed throughout and via the vertiginous high heels, cinched in fifties dresses, bright red lipstick, sleazy Soho evenings, early morning Camden sky that reminds of ‘weak tea…pale, light polluted flood’ and a mis-en-scene of strip clubs, dance dens, drag queens, nicotine tinged cafes, tripping on lit fags and finding moments of epiphany in kebab joints, Sophia Blackwell paints a great picture of what it is like to be young and keen but feeling slightly baffled and soiled, in the city, likely drawn from her own experiences as a performer.

Striking are simple sentences such as ‘stepping out into the battered, lit up, heart of the city’, while lines like ‘this is your life and some day, it’s going to have to come in’ would be more suitable for fridge magnets. Sophia Blackwell has a worthy cause to push, and so the overwhelming style of the prose reads like a combination of advice sought from a combination of Cosmopolitan and riot grrl magazines.

This is chick lit dressed up in feminist dungarees, and ultimately is pleasant enough, but a little bland. Which is not the kind of statement you get the feeling Sophia Blackwell wishes to make.

Published next week by Limehouse Books, you can pre-order it from Amazon for £7.19.

Rating: 2.5/5

Other recommended reading: Sophia Blackwell’s poetry collection Into Temptations and Pearl by Jo Knowles, which also features a complex cast of characters in soap opera scenarios.

Francesca Baker

Sophia Blackwell