Exploring themes of morality, privacy, trauma and identity – Naima Brown’s The Shot examines the blurred lines between entertainment and exploitation.
Producer Mara Bolt is the queen of reality TV. Ambitious to the point of ruthlessness, Mara will do anything for ratings.
When she meets Kristy Shaw, Mara is certain she’s found the star of her newest series, The Shot. Kristy is languishing in her small hometown and a dead-end job, pining for her first love, Max Irving.
The Shot offers her a Total Body Transformation – extreme plastic surgery to render her unrecognisable – as a way to recapture Max’s affections under a new identity: Imogen Byrne.
But there’s a catch: if she doesn’t secure his heart in thirty days, she must have her surgeries reversed, and go back to her previous life.
As the cameras start rolling, Mara and Kristy both feel there is something happening behind the scenes – something that threatens to reveal old wounds and create new secrets.
If they are going to keep the show on track, they must repress the truths and desires that lie just beneath the surface. How much would you sacrifice for another shot at the perfect life?
The Shot is a rollercoaster read about our obsession with beauty, the trappings of success, and the desperate, outrageous lengths we will go to for love and ambition.
Naima Brown holds degrees in Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology and Religious Studies. Her non-fiction has appeared in Vogue Australia, the Guardian Australia, and more.
She has spent over a decade working in news, current affairs and documentary – save for her brief stint in reality TV, which inspired this novel.
She was born and raised in Northern California before living and working in Yemen and Afghanistan, and now lives in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales with her husband and her dog.
Naima, alongside Melissa Doyle, is the co-author of How to Age Against the Machine: An Empowering Guide for Women Ageing on Their Own Terms. The Shot is her first novel.
The Shot is published by Pan Macmillan Australia (Macmillan Australia) and available from all leading book retailers including QBD Books.
Image: The Shot – courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia