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The Curvy Girls Club
Michele Gorman
A hilarious, heart-warming read about normal women who decide to ditch the weighing scales and love themselves just the way they are.Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Bridesmaids.Can the curvy girls have their cake and eat it?Meet best friends Pixie, Ellie, Katie and Jane. Fed up with always struggling to lose weight, they start a social club where size doesn’t matter. Soon it’s the most popular place to be – having fun instead of counting carbs. And the girls suddenly find their lives changing in ways they never imagined.But outside the club, things aren’t as rosy, as they struggle with the ups and downs of everyday life.In this funny, heart-warming read about normal women learning to love themselves, the curvy girls soon realise that no matter what life throws at them, together, anything is possible . . .Loved The Curvy Girls Club? Then indulge yourself in the brand-new feel-good sequel, The Curvy Girls Baby Club – can the friends keep their sense of humour, not to mention their self-esteem, in the face of haemorrhoids and elasticated waistbands?
MICHELE GORMAN
The Curvy Girls Club
Copyright (#u05ba700a-2a98-5621-96df-3ac52ccd531f)
AVON
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Michelle Gorman 2015
Cover image © Roxanne Lapassade 2015
Cover design © Nicandlou 2015
Michele Gorman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007585625
Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007585632
Version: 2015-12-09
Dedication (#u05ba700a-2a98-5621-96df-3ac52ccd531f)
For all women of every shape and size. There’s so much more to us than meets the eye.
Contents
Cover (#u94fb93f5-07a7-55dc-b04e-5cd48b084e52)
Title Page (#uc68a981d-12ed-541e-a67b-b7db2efbd3eb)
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Curvy Girls Club Book Club Questions
Keep Reading: Match me if you Can
Read on for an exclusive extract from Match me if you Can
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE (#u05ba700a-2a98-5621-96df-3ac52ccd531f)
Pixie rejoined our little group, muttering as she shot dirty looks at Pam, our Slimming Zone consultant and weekly bearer of bad news.
‘I’ve had it,’ she said. ‘Do you know how much weight I’ve lost in the last four years? Do you? I worked it out over Christmas. Seventy-six pounds. That’s two hundred and sixty thousand calories I haven’t enjoyed,’ she continued, saving us calculating that depressing equation. ‘And do you know how much weight I’ve gained back?’ Her hazel eyes glinted.
Glances bounced between Ellie and Jane and me. I wouldn’t answer that question if water-boarded.
‘All but seven pounds. It’s taken me years to lose what I could have flushed down the loo with a minor bout of dysentery. I’d have been better off drinking the water on holiday in Morocco.’
‘You’ve just hit a wall, that’s all,’ said Ellie. ‘It happens to everyone. You’ll feel better next week.’
‘It feels like the Great Wall of China, love.’ She shook her head. ‘Why should next week be any better, or the week after that?’
Ellie was flummoxed by such blasphemy. ‘It just will be. You’ve got to stick with it. Pam says—’
‘I know what Pam says, Ellie. I’ve been coming here for four years. Four years. I’ve lost seven pounds. I’m sick of it. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?’ She gestured around the room, to the crowd of new faces. Post-Christmas optimists. By Easter they’d be as bitter as Pixie.
‘Because we love each other and get to see each other every week here,’ said Ellie. ‘You’re my best friends. Katie and I wouldn’t have met you if it wasn’t for Slimming Zone.’
We’d joined not long after Pixie did, and I couldn’t have been more grateful to have Ellie at my side. I’d looked forward to that first meeting about as much as my family’s annual visit to Great Aunt Bernardine, who smelled of cats and liked to explain to me why I was single.
We’d entered the church hall fearing the worst. Would they announce our weight in booming voices tinged with judgement? Would everyone laugh? Was the rest of the group only there to lose those stubborn last five pounds, making us the elephants in the room?
We needn’t have worried. Everyone was friendly and supportive. Nobody announced pounds gained, only pounds lost. And as Ellie just pointed out, that’s how we met Jane and Pixie. They were already friends, Jane having joined about a year before Pixie. They might seem like opposites but Slimming Zone had brought them together, as it had us all.
I scanned the packed hall, thinking about Pixie’s question. ‘We could be anywhere together,’ I said.
‘But we have fun here,’ Ellie said.
‘No we don’t,’ Pixie scoffed. ‘We have fun at dinner after we leave here.’
‘I like these meetings,’ Jane said, staring at the growing pile of knitting in her lap. ‘I feel like they help me. And we’re … amongst friends here.’
‘I’m with Jane,’ Ellie said. ‘I feel better for coming.’
‘And it has worked for you, Ellie.’ As her flatmate, work colleague and best friend I knew how hard she tried. She was only twenty-five, with all the lovely elasticity that brings, so hers was puppy fat rather than the established fat of us older dogs. She’d lost a fair amount of weight but still saw no beauty in her size sixteen frame.
‘I love you girls,’ I said. ‘But Pixie’s right. Our friendship is built mostly around how many Maltesers we’ve eaten.’
Being overweight does tend to preoccupy one. Like having a hangnail, it’s always there to irritate you. Sometimes it’s painful but usually it’s just tedious.
‘I think we need more than this.’
‘I gained a pound,’ said Jane at the next meeting. ‘And I’ve eaten nothing but Special K for a week.’ She glared at her thighs. ‘My wee stinks of wheat.’
Jane was no stranger to unpleasant side effects. When she was on the cabbage soup diet none of us could be in the car with her unless the windows were down.
‘That’s not healthy, Jane,’ I said.
‘Neither is being two stone overweight,’ she snapped back. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.’
Ellie bounded over to Jane for a hug. She reminded me of a half-grown sheepdog when she moved, with her blondish-brown flyaway curls that always found their way over her eyes. She was just as friendly and gawky and I often had the urge to pet her.
