A Very Nice GirlA Very Nice Girl

"A razor-sharp debut novel about an ambitious young opera singer caught between devotion to her craft and an all-consuming affair with an older man"--
Anna doesn't fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He's everything she's not--rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read--and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship. As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she's playing--both on stage and off--begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what's expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.