King Arthur meets The Office

Often vaunted as one of the founding sisters of chick lit, former stand-up comedian Jenny Colgan has the art of producing perky, skittish froth off pat. Her fifth novel is set in a town-planning office in Coventry whose inmates - mismatched oddities - are reminiscent of Ricky Gervais's The Office.

Our anti-hero is Arthur Pendleton, a sweet thirty-something with floppy brown hair and a long-term girlfriend he doesn't really want to marry. In fact, Arthur's life appears to have got stuck on pause and it seems to him that nothing will ever happen again.Then something goes wrong.

Useless Arthur is promoted and is now in charge of the bid to make Coventry the European City of Culture 2005. The story really takes off when it unexpectedly slips into a mythical dimension and Arthurian legend mingles with 21st century office politics.