You may have noticed a recent trend in fan fiction-inspired stories of love affairs with pop stars. Well, one pop star. Because they all follow a similar template: boyish good looks, a career that started in their teens or via a boyband, androgynous dressing and, above all, an inconceivable amount of fame.
The most notable recent example of this is The Idea of You, the 2017 book by Robinne Lee that was turned into a major motion picture with Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine earlier this year. As much as Lee is sick of the association now, it’s well known that Galitzine’s character was modelled on pop superstar and former One Direction member Harry Styles. Before that, there was the lesser-known After TV series, based on a series of novels of the same name, written by Anna Todd, which in turn were inspired by Harry Styles and One Direction.
It all feels part of a wider trend of former fangirls, once relegated to online channels such as Wattpad and Archive of Our Own, now being old enough to become published authors (or playwrights, see: Fangirls, the new play at The Lyric Theatre where a boyband singer called Harry is kidnapped by his own fans) and acclaimed ones at that. Now we have Gold Rush, the debut novel by Millennial Love author and Independent columnist Olivia Petter. But Gold Rush is no work of giddy fan fiction, it is a cautionary tale.
Its protagonist, Rose, is introduced to her own Harry Styles-type pop due to her job in the publishing world. Rose works in .