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  • Published: 22 August 2023
  • ISBN: 9781804990971
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $22.99

The People on Platform 5




No one writes about community and unexpected friendships like Clare Pooley. Joyful and heart-warming, this is the perfect book-club read

Every day at 8:05, Iona Iverson boards the train to go to work. As a seasoned commuter, she knows there are rules that everyone should follow:

· You must have a job to go to
· Don't consume hot food
· Always pack for any eventuality
· You must never speak to strangers on the train

Iona sees the same group of people each day - ones she makes assumptions about, gives nicknames to, but never ever talks to.

But then, one morning, Smart-but-Sexist-Surbiton chokes on a grape right in front of Iona. Suspiciously-Nice-New Malden steps up to help and saves his life, and this one event sparks a chain reaction.

With nothing in common but their commute, an eclectic group of people learn that their assumptions about each other don't match reality. But when Iona's life begins to fall apart, will her new friends be there when she needs them most?

  • Published: 22 August 2023
  • ISBN: 9781804990971
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Clare Pooley

Clare Pooley graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and spent twenty years in the heady world of advertising, where the line between authenticity and fiction is constantly blurred, before becoming a full-time mum. She is the author of the hugely popular blog, Mummy was a Secret Drinker, under the pseudonym Sober Mummy and her memoir, The Sober Diaries was published in 2017 to critical acclaim. Her blog has had over two million hits and her TEDx talk, Making Sober Less Shameful, has had over 110,000 views.

Clare’s debut novel The Authenticity Project is inspired by her decision to expose the rather grubby truth about her seemingly perfect life in her memoir.

Clare writes from her kitchen table in Fulham, London where she lives with her long-suffering husband, three children, dog and an African pygmy hedgehog.

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