The Shot

By: Naima Brown

Narrated by: Sophie Loughran

How much would you sacrifice for another shot at the perfect life?

Producer Mara Bolt is the queen of reality TV. Ambitious to the point of ruthlessness, Mara will do anything for ratings. When she meets Kristy Shaw, Mara is certain she's found the star of her newest series, The Shot.

Kristy is languishing in her small hometown and a dead-end job, pining for her first love, Max Irving. The Shot offers her a Total Body Transformation - extreme plastic surgery to render her unrecognisable - as a way to recapture Max's affections under a new identity. But there's a catch: if she doesn't secure his heart in thirty days, she must have her surgeries reversed, and go back to her previous life.

As the cameras start rolling, Mara and Kristy both feel there is something happening behind the scenes - something that threatens to reveal old wounds and create new secrets. If they are going to keep the show on track, they must repress the truths and desires that lie just beneath the surface.

The Shot is a rollercoaster read about our obsession with beauty, the trappings of success, and the desperate, outrageous lengths we will go to for love and ambition. It asks the question: where is the line between entertainment and exploitation?

©2023 Naima Brown (P)2023 Macmillan Australia Audio

Critic reviews

"The Shot speaks to that secret, burning urge we have to be pulled apart and put back together as something better. Naima Brown gifts us a runaway-train plot and characters that feel real, even as they try to deny every part of themselves. Clear your schedule: you won't be able to put this book down." (Hayley Scrivenor, bestselling author of Dirt Town)

"Riveting, intense and, let's face it, downright disturbing, The Shot explores morality through the lens of reality television. On the surface fast-paced and entertaining, this book is the proverbial duck, paddling deeper to explore the more complex waters of privacy, ethics and the human cost of what we call entertainment. This one is going to get a lot of attention, and rightfully so." (Sally Hepworth, bestselling author of The Soulmate)