The Plus One

Sophia Money-Coutts

Mar 2019 · Sold by HarperCollins UK

About this ebook

‘So funny. And the sex is amazing – makes me feel like a nun!’ Jilly Cooper

‘Light, fizzy and as snort-inducing as a pint of Prosecco.’ Evening Standard Magazine

‘Hilarious and compelling.’ Daily Mail

‘Perfect summer reading for fans of Jilly Cooper and Bridget Jones.’ HELLO!

‘Bridget Jones trapped inside a Jilly Cooper novel. A beach cocktail in book form.’ METRO

‘Gloriously cheering.’ Red Magazine

‘Howlingly funny.’ India Knight, Sunday Times Magazine

‘This saucy read is great sun-lounger fodder.’ Heat

‘Sexy and very funny...perfect for fans of Jilly Cooper.’ Closer

‘Cheerful, saucy and fun!’ The Sunday Mirror

‘As fun and fizzy as a chilled glass of prosecco...this is the perfect read for your holiday.’The Daily Express

‘This book has it all – love, romance, sadness and sex – a rare find that is funny at times and moving at others.’ Marie Claire

The Plus One [n] informal a person who accompanies an invited person to a wedding or a reminder of being single, alone and absolutely plus none

Polly’s not looking for ‘the one’, just the plus one...

Polly Spencer is fine. She’s single, turning thirty and only managed to have sex twice last year (both times with a Swedish banker called Fred), but seriously, she’s fine. Even if she’s still stuck at Posh! magazine writing about royal babies and the chances of finding a plus one to her best friend’s summer wedding are looking worryingly slim.

But it’s a New Year, a new leaf and all that. Polly’s determined that over the next 365 days she’ll remember to shave her legs, drink less wine and generally get her s**t together. Her latest piece is on the infamous Jasper, Marquess of Milton, undoubtedly neither a plus one nor ‘the one’. She’s heard the stories, there’s no way she’ll succumb to his charms...

A laugh-out-loud, toe-curlingly honest debut for fans of Helen Fielding, Bryony Gordon and Jilly Cooper. Don’t miss the hottest book of 2018!

Ratings and reviews

2.5 stars – rounded. So, with all of the promotion surrounding this title, I was hoping for a “Bridget Jones” style heroine – affable, clumsy, perhaps even clueless but not one who just waits for things to happen but takes a stake in making a change. What I got was Polly. Nearer to thirty than twenty, working at Posh! Magazine (think a bit tabloid-ish People style magazine -but geared to the ‘posh set” (or the wanna-be posh set.) She’s single and more than a bit of a disaster: drinks too much, her friendships feel superficial, she’s needy and more than a bit of a whinger. Actually – I take that back, emotionally Polly is closer to a deep in the mix of puberty teenager – with all of the attitude, little of the ambition and truly clueless (or unable to apply any sort of introspection) about her own behavior and how it turns off those around her. But – she’s in London, those she knows are paired off or working their way there – and nothing sends a single girl with delusions of couple hood (buried beneath the feeble scream of “I am woman, hear me roar) than a wedding invitation to you and your Plus One. Nothing makes me want to toss a book (or alternately – my eReader) under a passing bus than a heroine without any apparent measure of self-respect or self-awareness. I can deal with unlikable characters that want to make a difference and act on it. I can’t manage to remain patient with characters who are either willfully ignoring their own failings, or never bother to act at all – then blame everything and everyone else on their lack of personal growth and progress. And really, when you are having those “sex thoughts” – they should be relevant or at least amusing, not cringe-inducing and over the top. It didn’t seem sexy or even remotely plausible – not if this is a ‘relationship worthy’ guy and not simply an itch to be scratched. But, even that was dulled as Polly drinks far too much than is god for her, obsesses over the wrong things when changes could actually be within her reach, and just managed to annoy me to the point of no return by the mid-point of the book. I absolutely hate when I can’t find anything to connect to with a character – or I don’t see growth in a character who arrives severely emotionally immature and stagnates – despite endless lip-service to make a change. Just once I wanted someone to give her the “you get what you allow” speech in the hopes it would spur growth. But she was so self-indulgent and fond of playing and laying blame everywhere – that the clumsy and occasionally cute missteps that she made didn’t engender any empathy. Sadly, for this debut showed the author’s intent and idea – it was the execution, the plotting arc and stagnant characters that made this a low-budget version of Bridget Jones for me, with little of the charm that I expected going into this book. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

About the author

Sophia Money-Coutts is a journalist who spent five years studying the British aristocracy while working as Features Director at Tatler. Prior to that she worked as a writer and an editor for The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail in London, and The National in Abu Dhabi.