The Accidental Socialite

by Stephanie Wahlstrom

Release Date: 04/15/14

Swoon Romance

Summary from Goodreads:

Quirky and clumsy twenty-two-year-old Paige Crawford arrives in London on a cold Saturday in January. Just when Paige starts to think that moving thousands of miles away from home with no real plan was a bad idea, Jason Frost appears. Confident and classy, Jason is the complete opposite of Paige and just what she needs in her life, or so she thinks.

But before their romance has time to blossom, Paige trips and falls into the arms of a mysterious man on a drunken night out. She’s snapped by paparazzi, and newspaper headlines the next day suggest that she’s having an affair with a married footballer.

Paige finds herself instantly elevated to tabloid celebrity status which isn’t exactly a picnic, particularly when trying to juggle her new job at Fashionista magazine, a catalog of dating disasters and a nagging doubt that she maybe she can’t conquer London after all.

When a trip back to Canada for Christmas reminds Paige why she left her old life behind, she returns to London with renewed vigor realizing that while jobs, flats and men may come and go, friends in London are forever.

EXCERPT

When I walked into Maddox it was like another world. You would never know from the outside that behind that plain black door lay a world full of champagne, seared tuna and a six-foot tall supermodel/DJ. I saw Lucinda and walked towards her table, slightly slipping in my wet heels just before the stairs. I sat down and was immediately offered champagne.

“Hello, I’m François,” said a Ryan Gosling look-a-like in a very sexy French accent, “what is your name?”

“I’m Paige.” I smiled. God people were so nice here, why didn’t I move to London when I was, like, born?

“Paige? Like in a book? How unique!” At least I was off to a great start with him. “Well, Paige like in a book, what do you study here in London?”

“I -”

Lucinda got my attention.

“Chicken you look fabulous. Let me introduce you to everyone else.” As she rolled off several names I would never remember I looked at where I was and who I was with. Not only was there nothing like this at home, it definitely wasn’t free and full of models. Food. Check. Champagne. Check. Guys who look like Ryan Gosling. Check. It might have actually been heaven. Hopefully I hadn’t been hit by one of those big red double decker buses and died, but then again, if I had, my afterlife was awesome.

***

The Author

Growing up in Edmonton, Canada, a significant amount of Stephanie’s time was spent making up and acting out stories. She was studying to be an actress when she realized there weren’t any parts for women being written. So, Stephanie wrote herself a short screenplay just to be in it and quickly realized that writing was her true passion. She graduated from the University of Alberta with an English and Sociology degree and she also has a Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts from Red Deer College. She moved to New York on a whim after University and has written a variety of TV shows including an environmentally friendly lifestyle series and a tween magazine style show about celebrities. Stephanie moved to London in 2008 and aside from being obsessed with Eggs Benedict, shoes, Fruit Roll Ups and travelling, she also works in Children’s Television.