KYRA DAVIS

Okay, here’s a book I’m dying to read: Coupon Girl by Becky Motew. 36 year old Jeannie, Motew’s protagonist, sells coupons. She gets businesses to offer coupons to their customers and have said coupons printed up and distributed by the mail-order company Jeannine works for. When her employer holds a sales competition Jeannine is determined to win, so determined she gets involved in a community theater production of The Sound Of Music just so she can drum up business. Thanks to some humorous criminals, a few prim donnas, a cute director and a co-worker from hell…well let’s just say complications ensue.

Okay, so why am I so eager to lay my hands on this particular novel? Well for one thing, it’s not a romance. Yes, there are men whom Jeannine as designs on but all the critics seem to be in agreement that this book simply doesn’t fit the romance format. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I am so sick of seeing Chick lit described as “Urban Romances.” Forgive my language but that’s bullshit. In over half my books my protagonist doesn’t end up with the guy. I can do that because I write chick lit, not romances! That’s not to say I don’t occasionally indulge in a Linda Howard novel but the critics rush to lump the two genres together is a testimony to their misguided efforts to categorize all contemporary novels written by female authors into one niche that they can ignore and trivialize. Contemporary fiction written for, about and by women is as varied as that written for, about and by men and it’s time the critics started to acknowledge that. And finally, FINALLY a book (Coupon Girl) has managed to get some of the critics to at least consider this not-so-revolutionary idea.

Second, it is obvious to me from the excerpts I’ve read that Jeannine is a fun protagonist (and again, this is something the critics agree on). She’s slightly cynical and extremely witty. She’s also down to earth---as in not glamorous. She’s not pursuing her dream to become a famous novelist or Broadway actress. She’s not trying to climb her way up to the top of the fashion industry. She sells coupons and she’s involved in the production of a small community theater. This dispels another myth that the critics like to perpetuate which is that all chick lit protagonist are involved in an ultra-hip, girly-type industry.

Motew is not the first author who has written a chick lit novel without giving a nod to the whirlwind of stereotypes that surround the genre but she’s one of the very few who has managed to do so AND managed to get the literary world to acknowledge her efforts and individualistic writing style. So go check out her blog and please, check out her book. Publishers need to know that chick lit readers aren’t desperate for formulaic and predictable novels. A romance read is great once in a while but I think most of us like to mix it up occasionally.

Okay so that’s what I have to say about that. I’ll now step off my soapbox long enough to announce that I’m on YouTube. I don’t know how I got there but while trying to find an article that was written about me a little while ago I stumbled across it. It’s an interview from 2005 which I did in Italy and if I do say so myself, it’s a fairly good one. So go check it out. Right now YouTube shows that it’s only been viewed 17 times and that will just never do.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE,
PASSION, BETRAYAL AND KILLER HIGHLIGHTS
and
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
Pre-order your copy of OBSESSION, DECEIT AND REALLY DARK CHOCOLATE (in stores 09/07)!