Camilla Thurlow to publish debut memoir on female empowerment with Bonnier Books UK
Bonnier Books UK is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Not The Type by Camilla Thurlow, publishing Summer 2020.
World rights were acquired by Toby Buchan, executive editor at John Blake, from Ben Dunn of Dunn Literary and Jadeen Singh of John Noel Management.
Camilla Thurlow entered our lives as a contestant on ITV2’s 2017 series of Love Island, in which she came second. A trained explosive ordnance disposal specialist, Camilla has the know-how and ability to find and destroy the landmines that threaten the lives and livelihoods of so many people in the world’s former war zones, in turn making their land unworkable. Camilla is a highly independent woman whose thoughts and experience will resonate with anyone seeing meaning in a world where women are too often discounted or frequently feel alienated amid the frenzy or contemporary life.
‘The moment I read an interview with Camilla I realised that here was someone with an extraordinary story to tell. As it turns out, she tells it beautifully, and with a thoughtfulness and an independence of mind that are as refreshing as they are all too rare.’
Toby Buchan, Executive Editor, John Blake
Not The Type will inspire a whole generation to dare the seemingly impossible. This is a book based in part on Camilla’s meetings with inspiring women who have helped shape her and taught her invaluable lessons. This is a book about learning to confront one’s own anxieties in a world frequently dominated by celebrity culture, and about being a woman in what is, still, all too often a man’s world.
Camilla Thurlow said: ‘I thought a lot of this book was going to be about looking back on a young woman who felt entirely alone in a world that seemed to want to stifle multiplicity. However, it is not a catalogue of loneliness, or even of success and failure. It is about all the lives I never thought I’d lead, and the different things they taught me about the world. It is about constantly feeling a little out of place, and yet finding solace in that experience. It is the lessons I’ve learned from never being quite the right type, and it is somewhere I hope others can find a little something that they are looking for.’
Toby Buchan, executive editor at John Blake, said: ‘You may have watched Camilla in Love Island, but the moment I read an interview with her I realised that here was someone with an extraordinary story to tell. As it turns out, she tells it beautifully, and with a thoughtfulness and an independence of mind that are as refreshing as they are all too rare. As modest, even self-deprecating, as she is, she would be horrified to be described as a role model. But that is exactly what she is.’
Image credit: Ed Miles
