about the novel
A delightfully funny and romantic debut novel from Susanna Hoffs, celebrated performer and co-founder of The Bangles, that is "part British romcom, part Jane Eyre, and one hundred percent enjoyable" (Tom Perrotta).
Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song—written by world-famous superstar Jonesy—but Jane hasn’t had a breakout since. Now she's living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom.
But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight—the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’s past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy's earlier hit, and into the light of her own?
In turns deeply sexy, riotously funny, and utterly joyful, This Bird Has Flown explores love, passion, and the ghosts of our past, and offers a glimpse inside the music business that could only come from beloved songwriter Susanna Hoffs.
Music. Fate. Redemption. Love.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you decide to write a novel?
SUSANNA HOFFS: I've been a lifelong reader and have always loved disappearing into other people's stories, whether in a novel, a film, a play, a painting, a song. I dreamed one day of writing a novel of my own. And then it hit me, If not now when? and I took the plunge!
To my delight, I found an unexpected sense of freedom sitting alone in my room, writing for hours at a time. Perhaps this has to do with the escapist nature of my novel, which explores, in part, that first blush of a sexy new romance.
"In this sexy, page-turning treat, Susanna Hoffs writes as engagingly as she sings.” —Helen Fielding, author of the bestselling sensation Bridget Jones’s Diary
“An addictive medley of music, romance, secrets, and sex.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers