GMTV's Penny on her sexy new character
Sure, she also happens to have slept her way to the top and has just been shafted by her bosses in favour of a younger model, but other than that, Katie Fisher cuts a startlingly realistic figure.
In fact, she brings to mind a certain other 40-something breakfast TV presenter with a quirky line in jokes...
"It is a NOVEL!" protests Penny Smith, fiercely, cutting through my train of thought.
I get the impression she's had to say this to a lot of people.
"It's based on 20 years in the business. It's not based on GMTV.
"It's true, I am vaguely like her. But she likes cakes; I like puddings. They're completely different things."
And there's Katie's sense of humour, I point out... and her obsessive neatness...
"Yes, we both like bad jokes," admits Penny. "And I am very tidy."
"But on screen, she's the consummate professional," I add (Penny's been GMTV's newsreader for 15 years, her easy-going/easy-on-the-eye presence having proved hugely successful at easing Britons into their day).
"Yes, she's very good at her job," says Penny.
"... despite having slept her way to the top," I add.
"Well that's why I say she's not really me," she concludes.
Since Penny never strikes you as anything but a lady, you would have to concur with her view that this is the major difference between herself and her heroine.
But despite Katie's bed-hopping, their backgrounds and career paths are remarkably similar.
They both have a stable, middle-class family background (Katie in Yorkshire, Penny in Eastwood, before moving to Rutland aged six). Both trod the journalistic path of local papers (Penny was on the Peterborough Evening Telegraph) and radio (she also did a stint on Trent FM) before moving into TV.
In the book, Katie is the "female half" of a cosy sofa partnership on Hello Britain! before being ousted for a frighteningly ambitious Keera.
So why focus on this world in her new novel? Wasn't it asking for trouble?
"There was a point, about five months ago, when I thought, 'What on earth have I done? Is this a mistake?'" she admits.
"But I think TV is a world that excites a lot of people. I asked myself, 'Why shouldn't I write about it when I know more than most other people do about that world?'"
She must have been aware, though, that parallels would be drawn between her fictional characters and the household names among whom she works.
Already, several articles have dared to venture the idea that "Mike", Katie's preening, sharp-tempered sofa sidekick is Penny's take on Eamonn Holmes, something she has wholeheartedly denied.
"It's not GMTV," she insists. "We all get on really well, despite what you read.
"I had a launch party for the book and even those who couldn't make it sent me congratulatory text messages. Fiona [Phillips] said she felt like a proud parent and Lorraine [Kelly] said congratulations."
Was she hoping to make a point, then, about the style-over-substance world of broadcasting?
Not really, she says, seeming to consider this self-evident.
"Let's face it, we would be extraordinarily stupid if we thought presenters were employed because of their brains.
"It's based on all sorts of other things, including looks."
For women, more than men?
"I think it's about the same," she ponders. "Name me a male presenter who would frighten the horses."
I name her one who might startle them a little, despite being a very watchable presenter, but she's having none of it.
"Oh – I think he's rather sweet," she says. "Anyway, there are some women around who aren't traditionally gorgeous... although that makes me sound as if I think I am. Let's just say you have to be OK-looking."
So does Penny think she's set to be shafted?
"Of course I worry I'm going to be replaced but it's the same fear I've had in every job I've ever had," she confides.
"Ever since I was 14 and working in a petrol station in Rutland, I've had this fear I was going to get the sack."
At least she's got an alternative career as a writer now, I say, trying to look on the bright side.
Indeed, Coming Up Next is part of a two-book deal and will have a sequel which Penny's currently working on. It has a working title of What Katie Did Next.
She wrote Coming Up Next's first draft in three weeks last year.
"My theory was, I'd sit down every day and write 5,000 words on the basis they could always be changed," she says.
She'd wanted to write novels since the age of seven and her days as an Enid Blyton addict.
"That's why the dedication is to my Year Two teacher Mrs Winsor," she says. "I used to write reams of stories for her at school and she told me to dedicate my first novel to her – so I did!"
Her journalistic background helped her work to her self-imposed deadlines on the novel. This career includes two years as a roving reporter at Radio Trent, during which she lived in the Embankment area.
One of her novel's characters, Katie's nemesis, the vile but beautiful Keera, was born in Nottingham.
"I was desperate to mention the word Nottingham because I love the city," Penny says, simply. "I had a lovely time there. My mum's from West Bridgford anyway and I just wanted to name the city somewhere in the book."
So Keera isn't reminiscent of any unpleasant characters she encountered while living here?
"Absolutely not!"
She doesn't get back to Nottingham much nowadays but she does get updates on the city from her colleague, Priya Kaur-Jones, also from Nottingham, who joined GMTV 18 months ago.
"She says there are about 500,000 more flats than when I lived there!" she says.
Penny now lives in West London with her partner of seven years ("I don't talk about him, though").
Coming Up Next would not, she says, win the Booker Prize. "But it's the sort of book I like to read and I hope other people are enjoying it too."
It seems they are; it currently lies at number seven in the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Typically, Penny is wary of blowing her own trumpet too much.
"Lots of people are buying it, which is good," she says, cautiously. She has been careful about what reviews she reads. "I find it quite difficult when people say horrid things."
All of my friends have been lovely about it – but if they didn't like it, they probably wouldn't tell me!"
Coming Up Next by Penny Smith is published by Harper Perennial, priced £6.99.
GMTV's Penny Smith
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