Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kirsten Arnett:

Cherry is a Floridian, scraping a living as a clown and paying the rent with a dead end job.  The best entertainer on the circuit is Margot The Magician.  Can Cherry fall in love, make a living and reconcile with her Mum?

Well, I’m gonna leave you to find out.  It’s the kind of novel that in less-talented hands could be a disaster.  The outrageous nature of the plot is always there and there’s the make-up of dark jokes.  In between that, it flits between being a workplace comedy (all Cherry’s co-workers have side hustles), a book about art versus commerce, imposter syndrome, the impending fubar of a right-wing America and queer relationships.

It also strikes me as being an incredibly erotic, comedic book.  It opens with Cheryl ‘entertaining’ a bored mum at a kids party (Mum has a clown fetish) and we have some great sex scenes - especially Cherry and Margot’s first encounter portrayed as the stages of a magic act.  

This is balloon of a book that is dark, funny and ties itself off in a sweet bow.  It’s published by Little Brown on 18th March and I thank them for a preview copy.  #stopmeifyouveheardthisone.