Sometimes life can be like a bad movie. You sit through it, hoping it will get better, suspecting that it won't and wondering at what point you can reasonably walk out . . .

Kit Audrey Butler is the manager of the Orange, a dilapidated independent cinema.

Estranged from her father, undermined by her boyfriend, and with her third screenplay recently rejected Kit finds herself badly adrift. Her favourite therapy, renting the appropriate video and scrutinizing the footage for clues on how to behave, no longer provides her with all the answers.

But when new ownership threatens the Orange, Kit is forced to confront reality and discovers that help and heroes come in the unlikeliest forms . . .

Bella Pollen is a writer and journalist who contributes to a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Telegraph , American Vogue, Harpers and Queen and the Observer. She is also the author of two other novels, All About Men and Hunting Unicorns.