‘Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People’
MEG MASON, author of Sorrow & Bliss

 A striking debut novel about love, sex, power and what it means to be young

Won by Bloomsbury in a four-way auction. To be published simultaneously by publishers in ANZ, the UK and US.

EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT
A VERY NICE GIRL

Anna is struggling to afford life in London as she trains to be an opera singer. During the day, she vies to succeed against her course mates with their discreet but inexhaustible streams of cultural capital and money, and in the evening she sings jazz at a bar in the City to make ends meet.

It’s there that she meets Max, a financier fourteen years older than her. Over the course of one winter, Anna’s intoxication oscillates between her hard-won moments on stage, where she can zip herself into the skin of her characters, and nights spent with Max in his glass-walled flat overlooking the city.

But Anna’s fledgling career demands her undivided attention, and increasingly – whether he necessarily wills it or not – so does Max…

Imogen Crimp gained an MA in contemporary literature from University College London, where she specialised in modernist writers, before briefly training as a singer. A Very Nice Girl was inspired by Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys – a novel about a young chorus girl relying on a man to save her from complete destitution – and the question of how that kind of spiral might play out in the life of a young woman today. Imogen lives in London, where she works full time as a writer.

Click the play button to watch Imogen talk about
A VERY NICE GIRL
and her own experience training to be an opera singer

‘Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People’
MEG MASON, author of Sorrow & Bliss

‘Transfixing from the start, A Very Nice Girl steals the show. Gorgeous prose, bone-dry humour and brutally shrewd observations make Imogen Crimp’s debut sing in this perilous love story about a talented young woman learning to wield her voice. Intimate and intoxicating, A Very Nice Girl absolutely dazzles’
BECK DOREY-STEIN, author of From the Corner of the Oval Office

‘Imogen Crimp captures the glittering thrill of being young and choosing your own life with a dark, unflinching undercurrent of desire, power and control’
JESSICA ANDREWS, author of Saltwater

‘Imogen Crimp explores complicated relationships, the creative life, and the challenges of living in London in your twenties, with precision and subtlety. Touching on feminism, power, finances, and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship, this book is an assured debut’
CLAIRE FULLER, author of the Women’s Prize-shortlisted Unsettled Ground

‘An exquisitely detailed novel – Crimp absolutely nails the intricate inner workings of the opera world. Humorous, biting, and unnervingly honest, the story explores one young woman’s path to finding herself’
ADDIE WOOLRIDGE, author of The Checklist

The Bloomsbury team will throw all of their experience of building buzzy fiction debuts behind this, to ensure

EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT
A VERY NICE GIRL

Watch for superlead publicity across all the key media along with a massive digital campaign and striking POS!

Laurie was waiting tables that evening, not behind the bar, so she couldn’t slip me something on the house. I was feeling rich, though, and I was thinking about buying myself another when the man sitting next to me turned and started to speak.
I saw you just now – he said. – Singing. That was you, wasn’t it?
I nodded.
Yes.
I waited for him to say something else. … continue reading.

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