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Fictional newsroom forms backdrop to love story

A former regional press journalist whose debut novel was set in a daily newsroom has published a second book, this time based around a local TV station.

Linda Green, left, worked as a senior reporter on the now defunct Birmingham Daily News, news editor on the Birmingham Metro News and chief feature writer on the Coventry Evening Telegraph before going freelance in 1998.

She based her debut novel, I Did a Bad Thing, around a fictional daily newspaper in Birmingham in which a chief reporter was battling cut-backs and redundancies.

The book sold 75,000 copies and has encouraged her to write a second novel, once again based in a newsroom setting.

Entitled 10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love, it follows Jo Gilroy, a single mum, as she returns to work part-time as a reporter on a fictional local TV news station in Manchester.

This time it’s the dumbing down of local TV news bulletins which causes the main character problems when she is demoted to the ‘And Finally’ slot on her return from maternity leave.

Said Linda: “Having taken a few pot-shots at regional newspaper managers in my debut novel, I felt it was time to turn my attention to the TV executives who seem intent on centralising and dumbing down local TV news.”

The central character Jo vows never to fall in love again after being dumped by her partner on their son’s first birthday. But a year on she meets Dan, an enigmatic balloon modeller with a dark childhood secret, and realises she has a battle on her hands.

Linda joined her local paper the Cheshunt and Waltham Telegraph as a trainee reporter in 1988 before moving to Birmingham.

She began working as a freelance journalist in 1998 and has written for The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Times Educational Supplement, The Big Issue and Community Care Magazine.

Now living in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, she is married to Ian Hodgson, a sports photographer for the Daily Mail, and has a four-year-old son.

10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love is published by published by Headline Review priced £6.99 and is available from Waterstones, WHSmith, Borders, Tesco, Amazon and all good book shops.