Bad Publicity by Bianca Gillam Summary, Characters and Themes
Bad Publicity by Bianca Gillam is a contemporary fiction novel that explores the emotional and professional struggles of Andie, a senior publicist working in New York’s competitive publishing industry. When Andie is unexpectedly assigned to manage the book campaign of Jack Carlson, an author she once trusted but who betrayed her years ago during their university days in Edinburgh, she must confront painful memories while navigating the demands of a high-profile book tour across Europe.
The story intricately portrays the tension between past wounds and present responsibilities, highlighting themes of trust, resilience, and the complex journey toward healing and self-acceptance.
Summary
Andie is a senior publicist at a prominent publishing house in New York, starting a high-pressure campaign for Jack Carlson, a rising international author. From the outset, Andie is filled with anxiety and unease because Jack is not just any client—he is the man who betrayed her deeply five years earlier when they were both students in Edinburgh.
Despite her reluctance and emotional turmoil, she must manage his first fiction book campaign and oversee a demanding European book tour, an opportunity that should advance her career but instead dredges up painful memories.
On her first day, nervousness causes Andie to swear accidentally in a meeting, revealing how much the situation unsettles her. Her boss Jessica enthusiastically outlines the campaign’s details, emphasizing the significance of the European tour.
But for Andie, Jack’s presence feels like a trap, threatening to unravel both her professional progress and emotional stability. She relies on calming techniques taught by her late father to maintain composure.
After work, she reaches out to her closest friend Sara for support. Sara has moved on with her life, but she remains Andie’s main emotional anchor, encouraging her to keep her focus and not let Jack jeopardize her career.
The story follows Andie as she navigates a series of events involving Jack and his team. Their first meeting at a book launch in a cherished bookstore is marked by tension and unresolved resentment.
Jack tries to engage in conversation, but Andie keeps him at arm’s length, determined not to revisit their painful history. Public interactions are strained, and an accidental revelation by Jack’s editor about their shared Edinburgh past heightens Andie’s discomfort.
However, professionally, Andie begins to gain confidence as she secures interviews and media attention for Jack’s book.
Throughout the campaign, Andie battles her conflicting feelings—resentment, anger, and a reluctant curiosity about Jack’s current self. A confrontation ensues when Jack suggests replacing her with another publicist to ease the tension, but Andie refuses, asserting her determination to succeed on her own terms.
The European tour takes them to London, Berlin, Paris, and Dublin. In London, Andie visits her family home, where grief over her late father and complicated feelings about her mother’s new relationship add to her emotional strain.
Jack’s public persona contrasts with private glimpses of vulnerability, gradually revealing a more complex man beneath his polished exterior.
In Berlin, Andie faces jet lag and cultural challenges but witnesses Jack’s professionalism during a difficult radio interview. A visit to a community bookshop uncovers stories of resilience, subtly mirroring Andie’s own struggle.
Paris offers moments of unexpected warmth, including a nighttime walk where Jack opens up about his lonely childhood and fractured relationship with his father, deepening Andie’s empathy despite their past. Their visit to the iconic Shakespeare and Company bookstore becomes symbolic of their shared literary passion and emotional entanglement.
As the tour progresses, Andie experiences moments of connection with Jack but continues to wrestle with unresolved emotions. Their relationship reaches a turning point during a stop in Ireland.
There, Andie bonds with Declan, a member of Jack’s Irish publishing team, and faces her jealousy when Jack interacts with another author, Aoife. A mishap involving a wine stain leads to a private moment between Andie and Jack, rekindling buried feelings.
When their car breaks down in a remote village, they take shelter in a pub, where they share personal stories through a game of “truth or shot. ” These exchanges soften their barriers and spark a tentative emotional closeness.
Back at the hotel, Andie receives distressing news about her mother’s sudden wedding, reopening wounds linked to her late father’s death. Jack tries to discuss their growing feelings, but Andie is overwhelmed by grief and pushes him away.
Eventually, she breaks down and reveals her pain to Jack, who listens without judgment. Their vulnerability leads to a passionate encounter, but the following day, Andie is consumed by fear and regret.
She insists on maintaining their professional distance, while Jack admits he can no longer pretend.
The narrative intensifies as they prepare to return to Edinburgh, the place where their betrayal first occurred. Andie’s isolation deepens when her best friend Sara becomes distant, leaving her to confront her past alone.
The story flashes back to the university days, revealing how Andie, then a student journalist, published an article exposing misconduct in the university’s sports scene. Jack, caught in a coercive situation controlled by a threatening sports team member named Robbie, ultimately betrayed Andie by leaking her identity, leading to a public harassment campaign that shattered her reputation.
Jack’s confession reveals that his actions were driven by manipulation and fear, and both were victims in a larger scheme. After years of carrying this trauma, Andie and Jack begin to face their shared history with honesty.
Despite the pain, they find moments of forgiveness and understanding, though Andie remains cautious about fully trusting him again.
Back in the present, Andie ultimately decides to resign from her job, seeking space to heal and rebuild her life. With renewed support from her mother and Sara, she starts to let go of her grief and anger.
The story closes on a hopeful note as Jack proposes a fresh start, and Andie tentatively accepts, acknowledging the possibility of love and trust after years of pain.
Bad Publicity explores themes of betrayal, trauma, resilience, and the complex journey toward healing. It highlights how professional and personal lives can collide, forcing difficult confrontations with the past while offering a chance for renewal.
Through Andie’s story, the novel captures the struggles of reclaiming identity and hope amid heartbreak and challenges.
Characters
Andie
Andie is the story’s central figure, a senior publicist navigating the intense pressures of her career while grappling with a deeply personal history. Professionally, she is competent and ambitious, having reached a prestigious role at a New York publishing house, yet internally she struggles with anxiety and unresolved emotional pain.
Her nervousness at work, such as swearing during her first meeting with her boss Jessica, reveals a vulnerability beneath her polished exterior. Andie’s emotional turmoil largely stems from her past betrayal by Jack Carlson, an author she must now manage professionally despite their fraught history.
Throughout the narrative, Andie wrestles with conflicting feelings of resentment, grief, and reluctant attraction, especially as the book tour forces her to confront memories and emotions she has long tried to suppress. Her relationship with her late father’s memory and her strained connection with her mother add further layers to her complexity, exposing her as a character balancing professional determination with personal fragility.
Andie’s evolving dynamic with Jack, including moments of tension, vulnerability, and tentative truce, underscores her ongoing internal battle between reclaiming control and being vulnerable to past wounds. Her friendship with Sara serves as her emotional lifeline, highlighting her need for support even as she tries to assert her independence.
Overall, Andie embodies a woman struggling to reconcile ambition, past trauma, and the complicated realities of adult relationships.
Jack Carlson
Jack Carlson emerges as a multifaceted figure whose charm and polished public persona mask a more troubled interior shaped by his difficult family background and complex past with Andie. As a high-profile author, Jack exudes confidence and professionalism, managing media appearances and book events with ease.
However, beneath this exterior lies a man burdened by past mistakes, insecurities, and the need for validation, particularly stemming from a neglectful father. His history with Andie—marked by betrayal and silence—adds emotional tension to his character, exposing vulnerabilities he tries to keep hidden.
Jack’s attempts to engage with Andie, from awkward encounters to moments of caring and confession, reveal a desire to make amends and perhaps seek forgiveness, though he struggles with how to navigate their shared history without reopening wounds. His anxiety, demonstrated by carrying spare clothes due to nervous sweating, and his occasional offers to step back from their working relationship, paint him as both self-aware and conflicted.
Jack’s interactions with others, including flirtations with Aoife and camaraderie with his Irish team, highlight his complexity as someone balancing public image with private struggles. His gradual opening up during the tour and his emotional honesty, especially in the pub game of truth, deepen his characterization as a man yearning for connection despite past failures.
Sara
Sara plays a pivotal role as Andie’s steadfast best friend and emotional anchor throughout the story. She provides a contrasting energy of stability and encouragement, urging Andie to confront her fears and not let Jack or her past derail her career and sense of self.
Sara’s own life changes, such as moving in with her boyfriend James and receiving a promotion, offer a glimpse of the world Andie might aspire to or feel distant from. Her support is practical and emotional, from phone conversations that lift Andie’s spirits to candid challenges that push her friend to face uncomfortable truths.
Sara’s perspective often grounds Andie’s emotional turmoil, highlighting the importance of friendship and solidarity in overcoming trauma. However, her moment of distance and lack of support when Andie needs her most—during the return to Edinburgh—adds complexity to their friendship, illustrating that even the closest bonds can be strained by grief and conflict.
Jessica
Jessica, Andie’s boss, represents the professional world and career ambitions that frame much of the story’s external conflict. She is enthusiastic and ambitious, eager to assign Andie the high-profile task of managing Jack Carlson’s campaign and book tour.
Jessica’s confidence in Andie’s abilities and her detailed explanations of the campaign reflect a demanding workplace environment where success is highly prized. Despite this, Jessica’s role is largely that of a catalyst pushing Andie into the uncomfortable intersection of her past and present, indirectly forcing her to face unresolved issues with Jack.
Jessica’s managerial style, though supportive of Andie’s career potential, sometimes contrasts with the emotional complexity Andie experiences, underscoring the divide between professional expectations and personal struggles.
Declan Sweeney
Declan Sweeney, a member of Jack’s Irish publishing team, brings warmth and levity into the narrative. His jovial and affectionate demeanor contrasts with the tension that often surrounds Andie and Jack, offering her moments of relief and unexpected kindness during the stressful book tour.
Declan’s praise of Andie’s efforts, even when minor, bolsters her confidence and provides a sense of validation outside her fraught relationship with Jack. His easy-going nature and cultural warmth symbolize a supportive community presence that temporarily alleviates Andie’s loneliness and professional pressures.
Aoife Smith
Aoife Smith, a striking author within Jack’s circle, serves as a catalyst for Andie’s jealousy and insecurity. Her flirtatious and familiar interactions with Jack highlight the emotional complications and undercurrents of the tour, intensifying Andie’s discomfort and feelings of vulnerability.
Aoife’s presence underscores the delicate balance Andie must maintain between professional duty and personal emotions, as well as the threat Andie perceives to her tenuous hold on Jack’s attention and her own self-assurance.
Andie’s Mother
Andie’s mother adds a significant emotional dimension to the story, embodying themes of grief, moving on, and family complexity. Her gentle inquiries about Jack and the evolving situation reveal a caring but somewhat distant figure, whose own attempts to rebuild life—including meeting a new man, Nigel—evoke mixed feelings in Andie.
The mother’s presence forces Andie to confront unresolved grief over her late father and the emotional distance that has grown between them. This relationship deepens Andie’s internal conflict, highlighting the intersections of personal loss, family dynamics, and the challenge of acceptance and healing.
Robbie
Robbie, though not a central figure in the later narrative, casts a long shadow over Andie’s past. His role as an intimidating and threatening presence connected to the university sports scene is a source of fear and danger for Andie during their time as students.
Robbie’s coercive power and violent tactics to silence Andie and control Jack exemplify the darker forces of bullying and institutional complicity. His character anchors the story’s exploration of trauma, power imbalance, and the cost of speaking out, making his influence felt throughout Andie’s emotional journey and distrust.
Themes
Trauma and Its Lingering Effects
The narrative presents trauma not as a singular moment but as an ongoing undercurrent that shapes Andie’s entire experience. The betrayal she suffered during her university years is not just a past event; it continues to impact her emotional well-being, relationships, and professional life years later.
This trauma is multifaceted—there’s the initial violation of trust when Jack, someone she was close to, appears to have betrayed her, and the subsequent public humiliation and harassment that follows. The story demonstrates how trauma isolates Andie, manifesting in anxiety, distrust, and a profound fear of vulnerability.
Her reliance on breathing techniques taught by her late father underscores the lasting influence of her loss and how grief intertwines with trauma. The trauma complicates her ability to reconcile with Jack, blurring the lines between personal pain and professional duty.
It also reveals how trauma can be internalized, making recovery a gradual and non-linear process. The tension between avoiding emotional exposure and confronting painful memories illustrates how trauma often lingers beneath the surface, affecting daily functioning and interpersonal dynamics.
Andie’s eventual moments of vulnerability with Jack reveal that healing requires not only confronting past wounds but also allowing space for honesty, forgiveness, and emotional risk, highlighting the complexity of overcoming trauma.
Betrayal and Forgiveness
Betrayal in this story operates on multiple levels, both personal and systemic. Jack’s seeming betrayal—whether voluntary or coerced—shatters Andie’s trust, leading to deep feelings of anger, hurt, and confusion.
This sense of betrayal is compounded by the public nature of the scandal and the betrayal’s connection to broader power dynamics, such as the university sports scene and its gatekeepers. The narrative explores how betrayal can disrupt not only personal relationships but also one’s sense of self and security in the world.
Yet, the story does not settle for betrayal as a static endpoint; it moves toward the possibility of forgiveness. Forgiveness is portrayed as a difficult, ongoing choice rather than immediate absolution.
Both Andie and Jack carry their own burdens of guilt and regret, which complicate their path toward reconciliation. Forgiveness is framed not as forgetting or excusing past wrongs, but as an active, conscious process that involves understanding context, accepting human flaws, and seeking mutual healing.
The moments where they confront their shared past honestly allow them to move beyond resentment and acknowledge their shared suffering. This theme illuminates how betrayal can fracture relationships but also how forgiveness, though painful, can open the door to renewal and growth.
Professional Identity and Personal Boundaries
The tension between Andie’s professional responsibilities and her personal history with Jack forms a central axis of the narrative. Andie’s career as a senior publicist represents her hard-won independence, competence, and self-respect.
Managing Jack’s campaign is a significant professional opportunity, yet it also forces her to confront emotional vulnerabilities she would rather keep hidden. The story probes the challenge of maintaining professionalism in the face of personal conflict, showing how the boundaries between work and personal life can become blurred and strained.
Andie’s struggles with anxiety and emotional restraint while dealing with Jack in public settings reveal the costs of suppressing feelings for the sake of career advancement. At the same time, the narrative highlights Andie’s determination to assert control over her career, refusing to be sidelined or diminished by past pain.
The juxtaposition of public success and private turmoil underscores the complexity of human experience and the difficulty of compartmentalizing identity. This theme resonates in the way Andie’s professional growth is interlaced with her journey toward emotional healing, demonstrating that personal and professional identities are often intertwined and must be navigated with care and self-awareness.
Grief and Healing
Grief operates subtly throughout the story, largely embodied in Andie’s relationship with the memory of her late father and the evolving dynamics with her mother. The loss of her father is a foundational element of Andie’s emotional landscape, shaping her coping mechanisms and the ways she processes trauma.
Her father’s influence is felt through her reliance on the breathing techniques he taught her, symbolizing the enduring presence of love and guidance even in absence. The story explores grief not only as sorrow but as a catalyst for growth and reflection.
Andie’s complicated feelings about her mother’s attempts to move on—such as the new relationship with Nigel—illustrate the tension between honoring loss and embracing life’s continuation. The narrative also touches on the collective nature of grief, showing how it affects family relationships and personal choices.
Healing, in this context, is presented as gradual and multifaceted, requiring acknowledgment of pain, forgiveness, and the willingness to rebuild connections. The emotional breakthroughs Andie experiences, particularly in moments of vulnerability with Jack and in dialogue with her mother and Sara, underscore that healing involves community, openness, and a readiness to face uncomfortable truths.
Grief and healing are thus intertwined forces that shape Andie’s journey toward wholeness.
Friendship and Support Networks
The story highlights the vital role that friendship and support networks play in navigating personal and professional challenges. Sara, Andie’s best friend, stands as a consistent source of emotional strength, encouragement, and practical advice.
Through Sara’s unwavering presence, Andie is reminded of her own resilience and the importance of connection amid isolation. Their conversations reflect the tension between wanting to confront difficult emotions head-on and the desire to shield oneself from pain.
Sara’s pragmatic encouragement to reclaim power in the face of harassment and professional setbacks illustrates the power of friendship to inspire courage and hope. Additionally, the support Andie encounters during the book tour, such as the warmth from Declan and moments of camaraderie with Jack’s team, demonstrates how even brief, unexpected kindness can provide comfort in stressful situations.
The theme emphasizes that while individual strength is important, healing and success are often rooted in the relationships we cultivate and the empathy we extend and receive. It underscores the message that vulnerability is not weakness when shared within trusted networks, and that these bonds are critical to sustaining emotional health.
The Complexity of Love and Attraction
The story navigates the complicated terrain of love and attraction entwined with past hurt and present tensions. The relationship between Andie and Jack is layered with unresolved feelings, resentment, vulnerability, and unexpected tenderness.
Their interactions oscillate between confrontation and connection, illustrating that love is rarely straightforward or easy, especially when burdened by betrayal and loss. The moments of intimacy and shared honesty reveal the depth of their emotional entanglement, challenging Andie’s attempts to maintain distance and professionalism.
The story portrays attraction as a force that can both heal and complicate, blurring lines between pain and desire. The push and pull dynamic between the characters reflects the difficulty of disentangling past wounds from present emotions.
The narrative ultimately suggests that love involves risk, honesty, and a willingness to face uncomfortable realities, even when the future remains uncertain. This theme adds emotional complexity to the story and portrays the messy, often contradictory nature of human relationships.