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The Wild Card: The captivating, uplifting and addictive summer read you don’t want to miss in 2023!

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How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: Judy Murray 6am This is the tennis book I have been wanting to read all my tennis-obsessed bookworm life - and it was absolutely worth the wait. I usually wake up between 6am and 6.30am to daylight coming through the little gap in the curtains. I certainly don’t set an alarm for that time – I just think as I get older, I exist on less sleep. I’ll have hot water with lemon and fresh ginger; it signifies the start of my day. 7.30am

Judy is one of the most inspirational people I have met, a natural storyteller and has lived a life full of new experiences and achievements," said MacRae. Murray has 64 national titles to her name and in 1995 became the Scottish National Coach. Alongside her tennis and coaching achievements, Murray was a contestant on "Strictly Come Dancing" in 2014, a Costa Book Award judge in 2021 and will make her debut at the Edinburgh Fringe.I really wanted to love this book. It was perfectly timed to read alongside Wimbledon fortnight and I admire Judy Murray for her foray into something different by writing, but sadly it fell really flat for me. It was predictable from beginning to end, which can be okay in a book like this if the writing is great - unfortunately, it’s not. There’s so much ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. It felt like the end was written in a rush, three really obvious typos - the plural of a word in error, completely wrong spelling of another and a sentence which had been repeated within itself. Again, these wee things are easy to overlook when the story has you completely immersed. I felt I was skim reading this in the end just to get it finished. Positives - a lovely insight to behind the scenes of the Wimbledon location itself, the changing rooms and players spaces, Abi as the main character was ‘nice’ and you did root for her yet I couldn’t help feel she could’ve been more impactful. Downsides? It felt like a half hearted attempt to show the dark side of coaching in sports, but didn’t really hit the mark. Predictable, lazy bits of the story to tie things up, it just felt meh.

Twenty years ago, Abigail Patterson put her promising tennis career on hold to have her baby son, Robbie. But after a wild card entry to Wimbledon, she suddenly finds herself swept up in a world she thought she'd left behind - and against all odds, she's winning! Whilst the overall story line is a little far fetched, (or is it? Emma Radacanu won a grand slam from a wild card entry), the details feel very realistic and this must come from Judy’s vast experience in the sport. I loved the characters, and had that slight disappointment you get when you have to leave them behind as the novel finishes. The Wild Card is a "fresh, uplifting" story about how it is never too late to follow your dreams, following Abigail Patterson who, after putting her tennis career on hold, finds herself entered into the country’s biggest tennis championship as a wild card entry. However, her success in the competition means that is only a matter of time before the press start uncovering the secret Abi has kept hidden for so long.I love going out to eat, or driving into Edinburgh or Glasgow to see a musical. Jersey Boys is my favourite, I think I’ve seen it seven or eight times. 10pm

Yet as those long-buried dreams of lifting the sparkling silver trophy on centre court inch closer, Abi knows that it's only a matter of time before the press start digging into her past and uncover the secret she's kept hidden for so long. Orion Fiction has secured a two-book deal, including The Wild Card, from debut novelist and former international tennis player Judy Murray.

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Twenty years ago, Abigail Patterson put her promising tennis career on hold to have her baby son, Robbie. But after a wild card entry to Wimbledon, she suddenly finds herself swept up in a world she thought she’d left behind – and against all odds, she’s winning! Yet as those long-buried dreams of lifting the sparkling silver trophy on centre court inch closer, Abi knows that it’s only a matter of time before the press start digging into her past and uncover the secret she’s kept hidden for so long.

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