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On her 40th birthday Louise May appears to have it all, a loving husband, three beautiful children, caring friends and ample finances. So why is she alone in a faraway room drinking Vodka, overdosing on sleeping pills and reflecting on the contents of a pictorial biography compiled for her birthday by those dearest to her?
She recalls the loneliness and insecurities of her childhood and finding solace and escape in music. Forming a 3piece Girl Band, The Bingles, in her mid-teens with two like-minded girls, Saskia and Foxy. Their struggle to find musical credibility in a male dominated industry and their later struggle to remain grounded through the hedonism, temptations and touring rigours of success only to break up when Louise marries, Rupert, a wealthy, powerful and much older property tycoon.
Louise’s marriage ends inside a year but the loss of Saskia and Foxy fuels the pain and depression that find her directionless and struggling daily to pick up the pieces of her shattered life until her agent organises a job for her as the host of a late night TV shopping show that see her spending her days alone and lonely and her nights cheerfully but vapidly spruiking everything from fake diamonds to fake breast implants.
And then she meets her current husband Adam and for almost a decade her world is a better place.
Until Louise goes crazy…
From pop star to fully certified ‘fruitcake’, Louise May’s epic journey is littered with a kamikaze-style marriage, celebrity substance abuse, self-harm with a blunt instrument, and two of the worst imaginary friends any aspiring diva could wish for.
In the tradition of Girl Interrupted and Silver Linings Playbook, HOT CHOCOLATE IN WONDERLAND is an insightful, stigma busting, sometimes heartbreaking, often humorous and always honest account of living with a mental illness from an author who knows firsthand.
