THE PLAYERS CLUB by Rachel Mills - Spotlight

 

Rachel Mills' debut novel, THE PLAYERS CLUB (AtriaBooks),h is a bold, big concept about a secret club of women who risk everything to ask the question:

 If you could be anyone…who would you dare to become?

Beth Greenwood has spent her life playing it safe. She’s been a graphic designer at the same company for a decade, she dutifully meets men from the apps for dinner and sometimes casual sex, and she thinks about decorating her sterile, small apartment. Her comfort and joy are her Sunday catch-ups with her sister Elspeth, whose perfect life, very different from Beth’s, has recently started to unravel.

One day, Beth meets a woman who invites her to join a secret club. It’s not knitting or books; it’s living out an experience you’ve always wanted to have. Cirque du Soleil acrobat, gonzo graffiti artist, performer in the BDSM underground scene: these women will get you everything you need to—temporarily—be the person you might have been, had your life taken one or two different turns.

At first, Beth is dazzled by her new friendships and the opportunity they offer her to test the boundaries of her identity, to escape from her quiet, ordinary life. But even the best of clubs can offer only so much distraction, and when the stakes of Beth’s real life become uncomfortably high, she must ask herself, really and truly, who she’s going to choose to be, and who is going to nurture her when she needs it most.

The Players Club is a high-concept but grounded debut about the power of female friendship, the bonds that hold us in place, the human need for creativity, and the seductive possibility of reinvention. As immersive as it is incisive, it introduces Rachel Mills as a wise and warm chronicler of the human heart.

Rachel Mills is a literary agent and the Director of the company she founded in 2019, RML. She has worked in publishing for over 20 years, starting her career with a decade at Penguin, followed by PFD and Furniss Lawton agencies. 

In 2015, Rachel was awarded The Bookseller Rights Professional of the Year Award, and in 2011 was nominated a ‘Rising Star’ by The Bookseller magazine. She has been interviewed on publishing issues in Stylist Magazine, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, and on Radio 4's Front Row, and is a columnist for The Bookseller and The Author magazine. She has also been a hotel reviewer for Hotel Guru. 

Rachel is a 500 hr RYS qualified yoga teacher. She is a keen amateur cook and food obsessive.

The Players Club is her first novel.