Get a Life, Chloe Brown
by Talia Hibbert
The recap
Chloe Brown has a chronic illness, a sharp tongue, a beautifully organised mind and, after a near miss with death, a list. Determined to stop living so carefully, she writes down everything she has never let herself do: enjoy a drunken night out, ride a motorcycle, go camping, travel the world with nothing but hand luggage, have a no-strings fling and, crucially, do something bad. The obvious tutor in rule-breaking is Redford Morgan, the tattooed superintendent of her new building, an artist who paints in secret and who thinks Chloe is insufferably posh. She thinks he is unbearably smug. Their sniping turns into an unlikely partnership as he helps her work through the list, and both of them have to face the reasons they keep the world at arm's length. Talia Hibbert writes with wicked humour and real tenderness, and treats disability and past hurt with care rather than as plot devices. It is a contemporary romance that is laugh-out-loud funny and quietly healing.
Why read it
For readers who want a witty, big-hearted rom-com with a heroine who is disabled, prickly and wonderfully herself.
Fun facts
- 01
It is the first book in Hibbert's Brown Sisters trilogy, followed by Take a Hint, Dani Brown and Act Your Age, Eve Brown (2021), each centred on a different sister.
- 02
This was Hibbert's first traditionally published novel. She had already built a following by self-publishing, and Kirkus reports she put out ten books during her final year of university.
- 03
Chloe's chronic illness is fibromyalgia, a condition that causes widespread pain and fatigue and explains why she has spent so much of her life at home.
- 04
Hibbert later moved into young adult fiction with Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute, published in 2023.
