Brooke Magnanti ‘Belle de Jour’ Grows Up

The Turning Tide now Available

While you may not have heard of Brooke Magnanti, you will almost certainly have heard of Belle de Jour, the Diary of a London Call Girl blogger who saw her life immortalised by Billy Piper. Now Magnanti has written her first novel under her own name and in her words ‘there’s not a lot of sex in it’.

Belle de Jour became a household name in the UK after her award winning blog, Diary of a London Call Girl exploded into the world, offering a frank and fearless view on sex and sexuality. In fact, Magnanti was seeing herself through university and is now a research scientist, but clearly writing is in her blood as she’s now released her first fiction work under her own name. The crime novel, The Turning Tide is receiving good reviews, and while her good writing and narration shines through, it is very different to her previous works published under Belle De Jour.

US – The Turning Tide
UK – The Turning Tide

It’s always difficult for a writer to switch genres and go for a different audience, but Belle was huge and I suspect The Turning Tide to be a bestseller just for the sake of curiosity.

I like Magnanti a lot, she portrays herself very well and I’m a big fan on Twitter. She writes herself as a likeable character, so I won’t be surprised to hear she’s written another successful novel. Brooke became a full time writer five years ago when her contract as a research scientist at Bristol University came to an end, so for crime fans, this might be an exciting new author to follow.