In The Spotlight! Excerpt & Guest Post: Going Against Type by Sharon Black

Some would say Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Regan has it all. Beautiful, smart, athletic, and a great job working as a journalist – in the almost exclusively male sports department. But Charlotte is not quite so sure as she seem. Recently split from her overbearing boyfriend, she escapes for weekends surfing in the Atlantic, and spends her free nights watching sports, roaring at the TV.

Derry Cullinane is a fashion writer, gossip columnist, and sophisticated man-about-town – The go-to guy for any woman seeking expert advice on what fabulous outfit to wear for any given occasion. He’s also tall, dark, good looking . . . and straight! So what’s the snag? He has a track record of dating glamorous, vain, and shallow women.

Charlie gets an opportunity to write a new column under the pen name Side Swipe, but soon is drawn into a war of words and wit with a rival paper’s columnist, The Squire, and their verbal fireworks get readers and editors talking. Yet neither Charlie nor Derry knows just who the opponent is.

When Charlotte and Derry meet at the Races, the attraction is instant. As their relationship develops, so much more proves at stake than protecting their alter egos. But a blunder puts Charlotte’s job in jeopardy just as Derry’s past makes front page, and Charlotte begins to doubt her feelings. When Side Swipe and The Squire are finally forced to reveal themselves, will they revert to type – or confound everyone’s expectations?

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‘So, did you not enjoy the date?’

Charlotte sighed. 

‘Oh Helen, don’t get me wrong, he’s the perfect gentleman. You know, thoughtful and entertaining and completely relaxed with everyone. It was like Grand Central Station during the interval, but he also knew the director so we were invited back to the Green Room after the show. And I was completely out of my depth. 

Helen sipped her coffee.

‘You’re a big girl. Stop looking for problems. Was he flirting with other women?’

‘Other way around: they were flirting for Ireland. But some were definitely ex-girlfriends!’ She groaned. ‘I think the worst moment of the night, was when one of them asked me what was the last play I saw?’

‘What?’

‘You remember last Christmas when I took Anna and Daniel to Jack and the Beanstalk!’

Helen’s eyes lit up.

‘Did you tell her that?’

‘I figured, what the hell, be truthful.’

Helen giggled.

‘You know what it reminds me of? That scene from Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere brings Julia Roberts to the opera and the old lady asks her if she enjoyed it, and Julia Roberts says, ‘It was so good I almost peed my pants…’ Helen stopped as she caught the expression on Charlotte’s face. ‘Probably not the best example.’

‘Probably not,’ Charlotte agreed, then ruined the effect when she giggled too.

Hi Mikky, 

I’m so thrilled to be here today. I’d like to tell you and your readers a little about myself and my inspiration for my debut novel. 

I’m from Dublin, and except for some summer jobs abroad back in my student days, I never left! I took history and politics at college, and then did a postgraduate in journalism. That was during the 80s, when so many students like me were being told to stay in college for as long as possible, because there were no jobs in Ireland. A lot of my friends emigrated, at least for a number of years. 

I was a bit luckier. I managed to get work with a local Dublin paper first, and then I started working for a national newspaper. I married a fellow journalist (who worked for the opposing paper!!) and I took a substantial break from paid work, when my children were small, before returning to freelance work for a while. 

By the time I gathered my courage to write a novel, I knew I had to write about something I knew. 

Going Against Type is a romantic comedy, set in the world of Dublin-based national newspapers. It’s the story of rival newspaper columnists, who write under pen names, and unknowingly fall in love with their arch enemy: each other! They each have good reason to protect their alter egos. So their relationship develops, each blissfully unaware of whom the other is. Until they are forced to reveal themselves....

I always loved romantic comedies, and they are still my comfort read. I like them to be sharp and witty, and so I tried to write mine that way also. 

My inspiration was the 1940s Hollywood film, Woman of the Year, with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey. I’d be a big fan of both. Hepburn plays a high brow pundit, who rubbishes sport in one of her columns. Tracey is a sports columnist who leaps to defend his beloved sport and in turn, attacks Hepburn’s views, and the fun begins. In the film, they meet quite quickly and despite knowing who the other person is, they fall in love. 

In Going Against Type, I did something a little different. My heroine, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Regan is the sports buff. At the beginning of the story, she is given a chance to write the new, anonymous sports column, Side Swipe. 

My hero, Derry Cullinane is a fashion writer and gossip columnist, The Squire for the rival paper. He’s sophisticated, man-about-town and a bit of a playboy. They fall in love, and that’s where the fun begins. 

The hardest part of the book to write was their columns. I had actually written columns for a short while when I was a journalist, but in the book I had to write two opposing viewpoints. That was difficult. They needed the most rewrites and editing, but it was worth it. 

What I ended up with was a huge contrast between their weekly attacks via their columns, and their real life relationship with each other. And of course it meant there was more at stake. 

I love Charlotte’s character. She’s a feisty, 20-something woman, working in an area still largely dominated by men. I know very little about sport, having never been sporty myself. 

But I admire people who are, and I wanted Charlotte to be very different from me. Because Charlotte’s a journalist, I’d hate to think I was writing bits of me into her. 

A lot of people are surprised that my very manly hero writes about fashion and celebrity gossip. Apart from wanting to shake things up, I wanted to write a strong male character, who is completely comfortable in his own skin, and his fabulous tailor made suits! He is fine with having a female boss and working with so many women. Actually, he likes that a lot! 

It sounds like a terrible cliché, but writing this book was a huge learning experience. I had written short stories down the years, and had some of them published. I’d started so many novels, but had never finished them. 

I think I knew the time was right. And I knew I had a good story. It made me determined. I became an author and I’m so grateful for that. And I’m proud of my debut.

Author Sharon Black grew up in Dublin. She studied history and politics at University College Dublin and then did post-graduate in journalism at Dublin City University.

She has worked for national newspapers, including The Evening Herald and The Irish Examiner.

She had short stories published in U Magazine and won the 2010 Dromineer Literary Festival short story competition. When she is not writing, she reads, walks and sees friends. She co-founded a local book club 14 years ago. She loves theatre, old Hollywood films, science fiction and good stand-up comedy.

Sharon lives in a Dublin coastal village, with her husband and their three children.

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