Jane Start’s life is everywhere.

The musician was as soon as a star, albeit a quick one — she scored successful single with “Can’t You See I Want You,” a canopy of a tune by a pop star named Jonesy. But within the 10 years which have handed since then, our hero has taken a fall: “I was living with my parents again, which at thirty-three was a demoralizing last resort,” she says, bemoaning her new life with all of her possessions in 4 rubbish baggage, sitting close to her “sagging twin bed.”

Jane is the charming, humorous, however unfortunate protagonist of This Bird Has Flown, the debut novel from Susanna Hoffs, the singer and guitarist who rose to fame with the Bangles within the Eighties. It’s a wise romantic comedy that proves that Hoffs’ immense writing expertise is not simply confined to songs.

As the novel opens, Jane is making ready for a gig in Las Vegas. She’s not precisely thrilled to be enjoying a personal get together, however she chooses to take a look at the intense aspect: “The pay tonight would mean a deposit on an apartment, and a few months’ rent, a chance to make another artsy record, even if no one bothered to listen to it. It would matter to me. If I could ever write another song again, that is.”

She reveals up for the efficiency “wearing a tiny scrap of fabric posing as a dress, half-hidden beneath my ex-boyfriend’s vintage cardigan, the one possession I’d pinched, for sentimental reasons, when he’d left me for a twenty-three-year-old lingerie model. Two months ago.” Her longtime good friend and supervisor, Pippa, has some dangerous information for her: She’s solely going to play one tune (her sole hit) to the viewers filled with “rowdy frat-bro types,” and it will likely be accompanied by a karaoke observe. And she’s anticipated to sing in a scorching pink wig.

After the present, Pippa insists that Jane fly to London together with her, an opportunity to regroup and write some new songs. Pippa finally ends up unable to make the flight, which seems to be a little bit of kismet — Jane finds herself seated subsequent to an Oxford literature professor named Tom Hardy. The two chat about books and music over the course of the lengthy flight and Jane, unable to withstand the good-looking tutorial, impulsively kisses him.

Jane spends a number of days in London, pining for the one she thinks might need gotten away, till she lastly will get a textual content message from him, asking her to go to him in Oxford. She does, and the 2 hit it off — a lot in order that she primarily strikes in with him, accompanying him to occasions at his college, and befriending a few of his colleagues.

She additionally will get some thrilling profession information: Jonesy, the creator of her one hit, desires her to play with him at a particular present at Royal Albert Hall. Jane is not positive she desires to undergo with it; she’s been troubled with stage fright for many of her profession. And she’s rising used to the concept of dwelling together with her new everlasting flame, removed from the highlight: “Could it be the life I wanted was the one in England, with Tom? To write, record, perform in small venues — a folk singer’s life?” But issues get difficult with Tom — Jane learns that he is obtained a secret, one which causes her to see him in a distinct gentle.

Novels like This Bird Has Flown succeed or fail on the power of their protagonists, and Jane is an unforgettable one. She’s refreshingly three-dimensional, conscious of her personal faults, annoyed over the tough time she has getting over her ex-boyfriend. She’s self-deprecating, however is aware of she’s proficient; Hoffs by no means makes her the butt of jokes. The reader sees her as a good friend, not an object of pity, which is essential to the novel’s success.

Tom, too, is a completely fleshed character, not the type of inventory love curiosity that Hugh Grant might need performed in a Nineteen Nineties film. The relationship between the 2 is unforced and pure, and their dialogue collectively by no means descends into the too-cute-by-half banter that typically marks modern love tales.

This novel is a comedy, and Hoffs is a tremendously humorous creator; she writes with an amused gentleness that syncs completely with Jane’s frenetic, considerably anxious character. And she nails the setting — London and Oxford flip into characters within the story, and Hoffs writes about them with actual affection.

This Bird Has Flown is a love story, a candy and tender romance, however not only one between Jane and Tom — it is Hoffs’ valentine to music. (It’s no shock that she titled the e-book after a tune by her beloved Beatles.) “I’d never yearned for the spotlight, only the music, only to strive to give others what music has unwaveringly given to me,” Jane thinks at one level. “An outpouring of love, of expression, of connection.” That’s simply what this novel is, and it is a fully lovely outpouring.