Contemporary Authors

• Kismet ( novel) Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2018

• Rogers, Coleridge & White - https://www.rcwlitagency.com/authors/tredget-luke-2/

  Luke Tredget works in international development, primarily for the Red Cross. His journalism has been published in the Guardian and his first novel, Elation, was shortlisted for the 2013 Luke Bitmead Bursary. He completed the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA in 2015. He lives in London.

• The Mechanics' Institute Review - http://mironline.org/luke-tredget-kismet/

  I feel inadequate and riddled with self-doubt when I finally come face-to-face with Luke Tredget. Me—an undergraduate Creative Writing student juggling a BA with an admin job in a language school. Him—a writer in his early thirties with an established career in international development, a Master Degree in Creative Writing and a novel coming out in 2018. Oh yes, did I mention Luke’s also a father to a very young baby?

  We finally meet for lunch in Old street after weeks of emails, trying to set up a date, postpone and reschedule what looked like some kind of mission impossible. Let me be very clear. Luke’s no diva—just an incredibly busy man whose working schedule often requires long weeks abroad. His unassuming, courteous and soft-spoken manners are in stark contrast to the grunge ‘n’ rock’n’roll music playing in the background—Nirvana, Muse and Arctic Monkeys. There’s no doubt Luke’s going to be the next literary rock star.

  We start talking about Kismet, a novel conceived during his one-year Master degree at Birkbeck University which will be published by nothing less than Faber. Basically, a dream come true for any emerging writer. ‘It was one of the best bits of news I’ve ever had,’ he blushes, still chuffed about it. ‘I feel like the whole year I’ve been waiting for that life changing email. When I’ve received it, it felt like a huge paradigm shift in my life.’

  A paradigm shift which, crucially, began with a short-story published on MIR. ‘During my year at Birkbeck course tutors were very supportive and around the same time one of my short stories was published on the MIR website. My agent got in touch after reading it…and so my publishing adventure began!’

  The publication date is set for late Spring/ beginning of Summer 2018 and looks like it’s going to be a modern, quirky and sassy reading. Kismet tells the story of Anna, a twenty-nine year old journalist facing a personal crisis. After discovering her boyfriend Pete is going to propose on her thirtieth birthday she joins Kismet, a phone-based matchmaking app to ‘test’ her current relationship and her feelings as well as her own personal life. And with the Big Thirty milestone around the corner, will Anna’s life be swept away by the online dating world or…?

  After working on Kismet for nearly five years, I wonder if Luke has considered quitting his regular job to become a full-time writer. He ponders for a few seconds. ‘There seems to be a growing consensus within the writing world that you can’t make money from books any more,’ he elaborates. ‘I’ll have to be proven really wrong on that front before quitting my job. But then there’s something exciting about having a job that is completely separate from writing. It gives you fuel to write, it gives you experience and it takes the pressure off your writing a bit. I believe it makes you a bit more light hearted and free.’

  No wonder why his approach to writing feels so spontaneous and stress free. For many years Luke’s been working on humanitarian missions, travelling extensively to Asia, Africa and South America, experiencing natural and political calamities in the poorest countries. Writing really takes the edge off, as he explains. ‘I tend to write in small bursts—in cafes, in my bedroom, during lunch breaks. I’ve gathered the ability to switch from whatever happens around me, even if it’s for only five or ten minutes. Even when my baby was a few weeks old, or in the middle of a trip to the Philippines, I would find the time to write at least a couple of lines.’

  So how does a disaster management coordinator with a BA in Economics and Politics become a creative writer? ‘Back in 2008 when I was working in the Red Cross I entered the Guardian International Journalism competition, writing an article based on my experience in Tanzania. That was the first time I wrote about something, almost acting like a journalist. I really enjoyed it and after that I thought, well, maybe I should give writing another go!’ Shortly after, Luke enrolled in a short course at City Lit beginning writing short stories. In 2012, he completed his first novel Elation which was shortlisted for the Luke Bitmead Bursary. Although Elation didn’t get published, the whole experience helped Luke build up his confidence as a writer. Finally, he decided to enrol in a one-year Master at Birkbeck University with the idea for his second novel Kismet firmly in mind. As he confesses, Kismet was the reason why he started his Master degree.

  A novel which might soon be published outside the United Kingdom. ‘That would be such a dream. I know Faber has sold the rights to Commonwealth countries but yes, to see my book translated in other languages would be amazing as well as reaching other English speaking countries such as America and Canada.’

  Even such a remarkable publishing journey hasn’t been devoid of occasional bouts of stress, as Luke admits. ‘Editing really is a big effort,’ he sighs. ‘The main editing was about changing scenes, crossing characters, killing a few of them…massive changes really. And then there’s copy editing which I was doing in June, focusing more on tiny details, language, grammar, avoiding repetitions. The final word document I’ve submitted had something like 2,000 comments.’

  With Kismet due next Spring, it’s fair to assume Luke might want to take a break from writing for a few months. Or maybe not quite yet. ‘I’ve just started writing another novel!’ he laughs. ‘Because Kismet was finished ages ago, I’ve kind of find the time to start a new book. But my next one will be very different, it’s from a man’s perspective. And I must say, after Anna and her relationship problems, I find the whole thing quite refreshing!’

  Having bombarded Luke with so many questions, time has almost run out (and we still haven’t finished our lunch yet). We end up discussing about our favourite writers and how they influence our own tastes. ‘One of the problems with writing a novel for a long period of time is that your own tastes will inevitably change. When I started working on Kismet, I was really into concrete and crisp prose. I was trying to mimic that style. By the time I started rewriting it, I got really into John Updike whose writing, on the contrary, is very descriptive and voluptuous. The conflict between these two writing styles is real. You can’t escape from that.’

  If the conflict is real, Luke seems to have mastered it rather well. On my way home I realise I haven’t asked him one crucial question, whether he’s ready to face literary critics and readers who might, or might not like Kismet. I mean, it’s hard enough to accept a bad mark when you’re a student, never mind a negative review on a national newspaper. Considering his life spent on humanitarian missions, his laid-back attitude and his optimistic outlook of life, I’m sure he will handle the pressure very well. I’ll keep my question in mind when I see him again at his book launch where, no doubt about it, Kismet will become the hottest Twitter trend in London.

  Silvia Rucchin is a very proud immigrant addicted to, in alphabetical order, animal-related tattoos, books, craft cider & beer, dogs and Glastonbury Festival. She is in her last year of a BA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University.

• Linda's Book Bag - https://lindasbookbag.com/2018/05/23/staying-in-with-luke-tredget/

  I have a copy of Kismet by Luke Tredget on my TBR and it looks fantastic. I’m thrilled to welcome Luke to Linda’s Book Bag today as part of the launch celebrations for Kismet so that he can tell me more about it.
  Staying in with Luke Tredget

  Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Luke. Thank you for agreeing to stay in with me and tell me more about Kismet.

  Thanks for having me Linda.

  Tell me, what can we expect from an evening in Kismet?

  You can expect a story that is relatable to many people, since it is set in a very recognisable version of London and features a main character, Anna, who is stumped by a very common problem – whether or not to accept the imminent proposal of her long term boyfriend, or give it all up in the hope of finding someone more exciting. To help her make the decision she has an app (Kismet, which gives the book its name), which in the world of the novel has completely replaced normal dating, because it is so effective at using our online data to match us with compatible strangers.

  (Now that IS an interesting premise for a narrative – especially as I once found myself in a similar situation to Anna – but in those days there was not even Internet!)

  Because of this near-future element, and the questions it poses about the role of social media and technology, many have compared the book to the TV series Black Mirror. But because it is essentially a romantic tale about a comically flawed heroine, others have compared it to Bridget Jones. I certainly didn’t set out to create such a hybrid, but I’m definitely happy with those comparisons!

  (I imagine you’re thrilled by them. I certainly can’t wait to read Kismet and find out for myself.)

  What else have you brought along and why?

  I have brought the ingredients needed to heighten the reader’s empathy with Anna, the protagonist. A bottle of white wine (if you matched Anna glass for glass throughout the book, you’d be in a sorry state), a laptop with a Spotify account and expensive speakers (Anna puts almost as much faith in Spotify to suggest music for her as she does Kismet to suggest suitable men), and a series of tapas dishes to keep appetites at bay (the climax of the novel is centred around a Spanish themed birthday dinner party at Anna’s flat).

  (I can’t drink the wine but I can certainly help out polishing off the tapas!)

  And finally, since the book features so many phones (and the phones in the book cause people such mischief), it will be necessary for all guests to leave their own phones at home! If such a thing is physically possible….

  (Oo – I’m not sure that is possible in today’s world but we can certainly give it a try!)

  Thanks so much Luke, for telling us more about Kismet. Congratulations on your debut and good luck. I’m off to begin reading it!

Print Marked Items
Tredget, Luke: KISMET
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Tredget, Luke KISMET Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $26.00 8, 7 ISBN: 978-0-316-41829-4
In this age of data insecurity, the premise of Tredget's first novel is highly topical.
A dating app called Kismet identifies ideal matches, on a scale of one to 100, based on the internet profiles people build up through online
activity. Since users can't easily manipulate their profiles, Kismet scores can't be inflated. So when Anna, already cohabiting with Pete--ranked 70
for her--has a chance meeting with her highest score to date, Geoff, an 81, what's an almost-engaged, on-the-cusp-of-turning-30, beleaguered
magazine writer to do? Once this intriguing hook is cast, the novel's execution slackens. The main driver of suspense is the question of whom
Anna ends up with. On the way to a conclusion that, to the author's credit, is far from foregone, there are many segments whose sole functions
seem to be expanding material that could have been dispatched in a novella to 400 pages. Anna's extended birthday celebration is a case in point:
At a pub session followed by a dinner party, Anna and her friends relate rambling and none-too-scintillating anecdotes almost in real time. Her
character is assembled like a recipe: Mix two parts creative inventiveness with one part recently diagnosed depression and a dash of recent
bereavement, then bake in a convection oven swirling with premature midlife dread. Still, Anna's crises are refreshingly non-gender specific. She
intends to control her own destiny irrespective of whom she's paired with and takes the blame for her own bad decisions. In one scene that readers
burned out with angst-ridden heroines like the one in the New Yorker story "Cat Person" will appreciate, she gets herself into a potentially
compromising position with a date and then decides not to sleep with him because "she just doesn't want to." Tredget is obviously in tune with the
travesties wrought, and ethical quandaries posed, by corporate-controlled media: His protagonist's work debacles amply illustrate the increasingly
blurred lines between journalism and advertising.
Despite some missteps, a thought-provoking debut.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Tredget, Luke: KISMET." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540723391/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=65522643. Accessed 19 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540723391
Kismet
Publishers Weekly.
265.26 (June 25, 2018): p156.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Kismet
LukeTredget. Little, Brown, $26 (400p) ISBN 978-0-316-41829-4
Tredget's trenchant, entertaining debut traces how big data and social media have become an obstacle for healthy relationships. Anna, a Londoner
on the cusp of turning 30, nets her first major writing project for her job at a quasi-journalistic publication that blends sponsoring companies'
brand values with reporting. Feeling left behind by her friends' trappings of adulthood and vaguely dissatisfied with her long-term partner, Pete,
Anna signs up for Kismet, a dating service that harvests users' online activity to rate matches. Immediately following a badly bungled interview,
Anna meets exceptionally handsome 40-something Geoff. Though Anna and the stable, predictable Pete rate a 70 compatibility score, the more
adversarial, spontaneous Geoff hits an improbably high 81. He reminds Anna of her deceased father, a chance for Tredget to perhaps too easily
overinvest many of Anna's inadequacies, missteps, and hidden desires in her bereavement. Geoff encourages her to return to her bygone creative
projects, including using Instagram to solicit help in reuniting an abandoned suitcase to its owner. As Anna hesitantly embarks on an affair with
Geoff, Tredget carefully maps how their compatibility score fosters a psychological disintegration that alienates everyone else in her life.
Tredget's solid satire provides an incisive view of the uncertainties of contemporary adulthood. Agent: Georgia Garrett, Rogers, Coleridge and
White. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Kismet." Publishers Weekly, 25 June 2018, p. 156. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A545023368/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=89d1fbba. Accessed 19 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A545023368

• Islington Citizen
  https://www.islingtoncitizen.co.uk/2018/06/21/kismet-luke-tredget-book-review/
  Word count: 184

  How well do we really know ourselves? How compatible are our partners? Are we too reliant on digital technology to guide our romantic choices? These are the big questions threaded through Kismet, the whimsical debut novel by Highbury-based Luke Tredget.

  Anna is a depressed journalist on the cusp of turning 30. Pete is her long-suffering partner. Anna’s days are haunted by doubts about the authenticity of her life. She writes sponsored content for a news website, neglects to follow through on her creative impulses and struggles to connect with Pete’s worldview.

  So Anna decides to play the field on Kismet, a dating app that matches people on the basis of their online behaviour and purports to know its members better than they know themselves. Her amorous wanderings lead to a series of dramatic twists and turns that force her to confront her identity crisis head-on.

  Though very much of its time and place, the narrative flows easily and includes some nice psychogeographical cameos. Kismet will make relaxed summer reading for 20- and 30-something north Londoners.

• Sarah Withers Blogs
  https://sarahwithersblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/book-review-kismet-by-luke-tredget/
  Word count: 958

  Anna seems to be in a pretty good place in life, she’s just about to turn 30, she’s handed an exciting opportunity at work, and she knows her boyfriend is about to ask THE question but Anna’s got some doubts, why? Her and Pete’s Kismet score is only a 70, below the national average, is that enough to settle down or is there someone else out there who is a better match?

  Kismet came into my life at pretty much the perfect time, I turned 30 back in October, and while I’m currently very happily single that little voice is starting to whisper at the back of my mind, telling me I should start thinking about what I want from the future, do I want to settle down, and do I really want to delve into the world of internet dating and Tinder…

  On the face of it Kismet sounds like a fantastic idea, it’s an app that compiles information about you based on the websites you visit, what you buy, the films you watch and then shows you your compatibility with other users you happen to be near, wouldn’t it be great to not have to sit through a dodgy date with someone you have nothing in common with! But then I starting thinking about it a little bit more as I followed Anna’s story through the book, if you’re looking at a number for validation and confirmation of your relationship where do you draw the line? Are you happy with a 70? a 75? Do you keep looking for an 80 or do you hold out for that illusive 90 or higher that might not, and probably doesn’t even exist, do you spend so long putting off life and settling down waiting for someone with that ideal number for you that by the time you realise you’re not going to find an 84 or whatever your chosen number happens to be it’s too late? Or if you’re already in a relationship would you take the retrospective test to see how compatible you are? If you don’t do you spend the rest of your days wondering if you’ve settled when there was someone better for you out there? And if you do what happens if you get a lower number than you expected? At what point do the happy times you’ve already spent together outweigh a low number? Do you throw away a year long relationship because you only score a 70? What if you’ve been happily with someone for five years and only score a 61? What carries more weight, experiences that you’ve had, or the potential (but no certainty) for more with someone else?

  As you may be able to tell from all the above Kismet is a novel that really got me thinking about the world we live in, where more and more it feels like we’re experiencing life almost second hand, we sit and watch things through a screen as we film them on our phones, we go to lunch with friends and can’t help but pick up our phone every time it lights up to check what’s happening in the world rather than fully engaging with the person sitting opposite us, and I say this as someone completely obsessed with technology, I love my phone, and my tablet and my laptop and I’ve made some wonderful friends through blogging and the internet, but is an app that monitors you and then generates a score with a complete stranger a step too far, do we start relying on technology too much and do you miss out on THE ONE because an algorithm says you’re only 60% compatible and so you never bother to go over and start a conversation with them?

  I’m not going to say too much about Anna’s journey through the story, I’ll leave you to discover it for yourself but I found it fascinating as she tried to balance where she was in life with where she thought she’d be, the things that she thought she would have achieved, and the life she thought she’d be living by the time she turned 30 compared to where she is. It’s probably fair to say that I had a wide variety of feelings when it came to Anna, at times I completely identified with her, at points I felt quite sorry for her and at others I just wanted to give her a shake and ask her what on earth she thought she was doing!

  At just under 400 pages Kismet isn’t a short book but at no point did it feel as though the plot was dragging on, the plot was so well paced and the structure was fantastic, split into three parts each chapter focused on a particular day in Anna’s life as she counts down to her 30th birthday and then follows her in as she moves into her 31st year on the planet, I kept just wanting to read a day more, to see what she did next, and for me it reached a pretty satisfactory hopeful conclusion which shows there’s more to life than a number, especially a number generated by an arbitrary algorithm!

  Would I Recommend?

  Absolutely! Kismet is a fantastic debut with a really interesting and I think timely and thought provoking topic! Well worth picking up, I’m certainly intrigued as to what comes next for Anna, I shall be imagining it in my head and looking forward to whatever the next tale Luke has to tell may be.

• Ronnie Turner
  https://ronnieturner.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/blog-tour-review-of-kismet-by-luke-tredget-kismet-bookreview-blogtour/
  Word count: 407

  Anna is adrift. She loves her boyfriend Pete but doesn’t quite feel a connection with him. She works hard but hates her job, desperately painting over the cracks and trying to fit in. She wants to travel and explore but finds herself stuck in a tide of endless days, sipping coffees and swimming in her own disenchantment for life. When she joins Kismet, a new match-making app that collects data on its users knowledge, attitudes, opinions, likes, dislikes and in some ways their thoughts and feelings all by noting their online presence, it reveals her unremarkable compatibility score with Pete. Questioning herself and everything around her, Anna is taken aback when she meets Geoff, an intelligent, handsome and charming journalist. Their compatibility is a rare and extremely high score on the Kismet app. Driven to discover for herself if they are indeed a ‘perfect match’, Anna delves into a new relationship, risking everything in the process.

  Told in a third person narrative, Kismet’s main character Anna can’t quite fit herself, her hopes, opinions and ideals into the bracket her friends all share. They want to discuss recipes and the London house market and she wants subjects that push their perceptions and challenge their ideals. To Anna, it is her duty to make life extraordinary but she is constantly struggling to make any changes. That is until Geoff comes along and he tempts her into discovering what might happen if she throws caution to the wind. I really enjoyed seeing their relationship unfold. This book is a love story with myriad elements that make it completely unputdownable.

  Anna was a hugely compelling character. I really sympathised with her. She’s bit of a lost soul, unsure of what she wants, who she wants to be, where she wants her future to go, which I think will hit a cord with a lot of readers. Kismet is a love story but it’s also about self-discovery and realising that perhaps there are no ‘perfect matches’. As you can probably tell, I really loved this book. It challenges the reader to observe and come to new conclusions. I was gripped from beginning to end!

  Kismet by Luke Tredget is an original, compelling, intriguing and fascinating novel to stir up emotions and urge readers to really consider the thought-provoking themes unfurling within its pages. Wonderful!

  Original. Compelling. Brilliant.

• Harriet Devine's Blog
  http://harrietdevine.typepad.com/harriet_devines_blog/2018/05/kismet-by-luke-tredget.html
  Word count: 610

  When this book arrived in my mailbox, I took a quick look and decided it probably wasn't for me. The combination of the cover picture and the fact that the blurb compares to it 'the romance of David Nicholls One Day', a book I didn't't care for, made me put it one side. But it fell into my hands one sunny afternoon when I was looking for something to read in the garden, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It took me a while to really warm to it, but I ended up enjoying it quite a lot.

  This is the story of Anna. She works as a copywriter for an online magazine, and lives in Kilburn with Pete, who she's very fond of but doesn't think she's in love with. She's generally slightly dissatisfied with her life, and is on anti-depressants (though Pete doesn't know). And (obviously he doesn't know this either) she's just joined Kismet, an online dating app that assesses its users' character and feelings in what is claimed to be a very complex and subtle way, and alerts then to any suitable matches in the vicinity. The matches are graded by number - at the start, Anna is disappointed to see a 57 and quite interested to spot a 66 from the bus on the way home. Pete, she knows, is a 67, perfectly adequate but not terribly exciting. Soon, however, she meets Geoff, who bears the almost unattainable number 81. Geoff is handsome, suave, and highly intelligent, and Anna agrees to meet him, basking in the knowledge of their very high compatibility. Indeed, that 81 makes her feel extremely comfortable with him - she needn't worry about her less than perfect body or any of her other supposed deficiencies as the high score will mean he doesn't mind them at all. So she drifts into a secret relationship with Geoff, which entails a lot of lying to Pete and involving her friends in covering for her. She's drinking a lot, staying up late, and feeling extremely guilty about her forthcoming birthday party, when she knows that Pete is planning to surprise her with a proposal and a ring. Should she ditch Pete altogether and settle down with gorgeous Geoff?

  So far, so romance. But this is a much cleverer book than I've made it sound. It's thoughtful, and thought-provoking in its use of social media, with its obvious advantages - a sub-plot has Anna reaching out via twitter to find the owner of a suitcase full of clothes which has been abandoned for four years - and disadvantages - too much reliance on an app such as Kismet, obviously, which proves in the end to have surprising and discomforting effects. London life for Anna and her thirty-something friends is portrayed in all its pleasures and pains - more pains than pleasures for Anna, who constantly feels she doesn't really fit in, or share the interests of her somewhat shallow contemporaries. She has an interesting mind, full of quirky ideas and projects, most of which she doesn't actually put into action. She drinks far too much - her consumption made me feel quite dizzy myself at times - tries not to feel guilty about deceiving Pete, and goes on deceiving him and feeling guilty about it anyway. Altogether Anna is a wholly believable character, flawed but sympathetic, and her creation is something of a triumph on the part of her male creator. It just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by its cover or its blurb, though naturally we all tend to do this anyway. How else can you judge it?

• Nora & Luna
  http://www.noraandluna.com/lifestyle/2018/6/1/pyac9qxsvc16t157jtteolqe0frfgc
  Word count: 690

  Anna is 29 years old, and grappling with the central question of her life: is it time to settle for a secure and predictable existence, or should she risk everything for a life of passion and adventure? Her attempt to answer this centres on Kismet, a phone-based matchmaking app that has now replaced traditional dating.

  Kismet works by compiling people’s online behaviour – the sites they visit, the items they buy, the films they watch, the things they say – and showing their compatibility with passers-by as a percentage score.

  But Anna isn’t looking for love, or not exactly. She is already in a relationship with Pete, who is attractive, funny and kind, but she worries about their lacklustre Kismet score of 70, especially when she discovers that he plans to ask her to marry him on her 30th birthday. She secretly re-joins Kismet, and soon encounters Geoff, a dashing, forty-something journalist with whom she has a compatibility of 81%.

  She approaches her birthday in a frenzy of indecision, and as the moment of Pete’s proposal nears, she finds herself faced with a decision that will bring everything into question – her job, her friends, her entire life.

  Kismet perfectly captures the reality of dating in a world of curated online profile and endless Tinder swiping.

  I was immediately excited upon receiving Kismet in the post to review that I'd be reading a book in which the protagonist shared my name. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but my first impression was just how beautiful yet simple the cover art is, and it made me want to get stuck into reading straight away. However, given that the blurb makes it sound like a romance novel, I wasn't immediately struck and didn't feel I'd relate to my namesake too well. Weirdly the book was relatable to me in many other ways, with dating apps, Sheffield University, Malmö, chai, Iris, and Kilburn all being aspects of my life right now.

  Whilst I'm somewhat fed up of cliché straight romances, Kismet surprised me. I enjoyed it so much, and it was very different to what I expected. Kismet is a dating app which knows everything about you by gathering your internet habits, allowing it to match you up with similar people nearby by allocating you a compatibility score. My first thoughts were that it sounds perhaps a little like something from an episode of Black Mirror, but equally that it seems appealing to take the endless swiping and creepy pick up lines out of dating apps. Anna suspects that her long term partner Pete is about to propose, so she signs up to Kismet to meet other people in order to test her feelings. This gave me a lot of thoughts about fidelity in the internet age - do dating apps make it easier to cheat? Or is it just harder to hide an affair when social media reveals our every move? I enjoyed the witty, well written take on dating apps and it was definitely a considered perspective of where the future will take us.

  Anna isn't always a particularly likeable character - her willingness to cheat made me feel uneasy- but she is the epitome of the struggling millennial to whom I think a lot of us can relate. She's stuck in a below average job, always wanting to further her career but lacking opportunity to be a real writer. Maybe I'm not quite at that stage yet (having just turned 21) but a lot of my friends are in similar difficult situations, with London not quite the land of opportunity it is hyped up to be. Her unfulfilled ambitions struck me though, with myself also having a long list of projects I've yet to set into motion.

  I think it was an all round good novel though, which kept me gripped, especially towards the end (I always love an unexpected plot twist), and if you're into romance, this will definitely be your thing. Even if you're not, it's still a great read!

• The Irish Times
  https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/luke-tredget-s-debut-novel-is-sharp-witty-and-full-of-tension-1.3483164
  Word count: 849

  Be the heroine of your own story, not the victim, wrote the late great Nora Ephron. In his debut novel Kismet, Luke Tredget has created a character who is both. Approaching her 30th birthday with fear and loathing, Anna is a London-based journalist in a mediocre long-term relationship who has ambitions to rise above her current status. An entrepreneurial spirit with a strong social sensibility, she’s been raised to believe she is destined for greatness, one of many millennial touchstones that Tredget explores in his intelligent and highly readable novel.

  A novel is a fitting vehicle to reflect the heavily curated worlds of social media, the feelings of inferiority that can stem from comparing ourselves to the fictionalised lives of others. Over the week that the action takes place, Anna behaves more like an antihero than a leading lady, allowing herself to become a victim of her own idealism and a digital age that cons her into believing in perfect matches and perfect lives.
  Dating app

  Much of Anna’s angst comes from a dating app named Kismet, whose Big Brother aspects are only marginally more sinister than those used in the real world by online matchmaking sites. It collects data about her, “the websites she visits, the playlists she creates, the items she buys, the pictures she likes, the people she befriends; in short, everything”, in a bid to find her a perfect match.

  Tredget lures the reader in with an opening scene that pings with realistic details as Anna meets Frenchman Thomas, a 72 in the Kismet rating system. The scene is interesting enough in its own right, but the plot thickens when we follow Anna after the date – back to the house in Kilburn that she owns with boyfriend Pete. As she creeps into bed, careful not to wake him, the reader is both implicated and intrigued.

  Poor Pete, with his “below the national average” score of 70, is none the wiser as the novel plays out in a series of awful decisions that shows what happens when imperfect people strive for perfection.

  Tredget tries to make his heroine’s selfishness and deceptions more palatable to the reader with an underdeveloped family history. Anna’s recently deceased father, her idol, left little behind him but debts despite his dream-big palaver. Since his death, Anna has taken medication to alleviate her depression, though the illness is only touched on and as such seems like a token effort to mitigate her actions.
  Unlikable heroines

  It feels unnecessary, particularly as unlikable – by which we often mean real-life – heroines are having a moment. Louise O’Neill’s Almost Love and Jade Sharma’s Problems (published next week by Tramp) offer two contemporary examples of female protagonists who speak the truth as they find it and refuse to apologise for telling their stories.

  In Kismet there is something inherently unheroic about the way Anna cheats on Pete, and implicates her friend Zahra in the deception, but Tredget has also created a sympathetic narrator to balance this, a fallible human panicking that her life is nothing in comparison to the one she could have, a Bridget Jones for the Tinder age.

  From London, the author has an MA in creative writing from Birkbeck and his journalism has been published in the Guardian. There are echoes of David Nicholls in his ability to create a convincing female voice and how he keeps the reader guessing with the romance plot. When Geoff, an 81, pops up on Anna’s app, her rationalising of everything from his looks, “like the sort of middle-aged actor you see in adverts for credit cards or razor blades”, to his penchant for sermonising makes for an interesting psychological study.

  Occasionally the narrative voice can be clunky or repetitive – especially when flagging Anna’s envy over Pete and Zahra’s closeness – but for the most part the writing is clear and carefully detailed. The dialogue is sharp, witty and full of tension in later scenes as Anna’s worlds collapse.

  Her office situation is also well rendered, with an obnoxious boss who values churnalism and clickbait. Anna is thrilled when she’s asked to interview a series of high-profile businesswomen, before she finds out that the articles must be “pegged to Breitling’s brand values of power, ambition and sophistication”. In Kismet, authenticity in journalism is a thing of the past, just as it is in the world of online dating.

  The novel reads a lot shorter than its 400 pages, with a number of vibrant set pieces – most notably a cringe-inducing birthday dinner where everyone tells their favourite Anna story – complementing the astute observations on modern life. In one of many succinct lines, Anna tells us that Kismet apparently “knows people better than they know themselves”. As the black mirrors around her start to shatter, the only way she can save herself is to switch off from technology and try to reclaim this knowledge for herself.