PENGUIN Random House SA has revealed the cover for Dutch Courage, the new novel by Paige Nick.

“I’ve been working on Dutch Courage for over four years, so this is a big one for me,” the author says. “It’s a novel set in a strip club in Amsterdam, where all the strippers are celebrity impersonators.

“So you can see how it might be tricky for a designer to strike the right note between the dark, dirty, neon-lit red light district where the book is set, and the comedy of a bunch of women from all over the world, dressed like Lady Gaga, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Cher and Rihanna, hanging out together and taking their kit off while they lip-sync to Like A Virgin or Umbrella.”

Nick, who describes herself as a visual person, says having a cover she loves is ‘unreasonably important’, adding: “For some reason, I’ve had traumatic cover-related experiences on all my novels.

“So I waited nervously. But this time there was no cover email. It even slipped my mind for a while. Then one afternoon I met with my publisher, Fourie, to discuss the book. At the end of the meeting, he wordlessly pulled out an envelope and placed a cover layout on the table. Just like that. No email. No warning. No possible avoidance. And that’s when something remarkable happened, I liked it -instantly. “

The cover of Dutch Courage was designed Russell Stark from publicide and the book will be available in stores from May.

Nick’s new novel follows the fortunes of a South African schoolteacher as she is forced to stand in for her injured sister as a Rihanna impersonator at a ‘Cabaret Bar’ in Amsterdam. Little does she know that she will be working at Legends – a strip club with a difference, where celebrity impersonators bare all by night and live together in a crowded apartment by day.

Nick is an award-winning advertising copywriter, writes popular columns for the Sunday Times and is the author of the acclaimed novels A Million Miles From Normal and This Way Up.

A selection of her Sunday Times columns and the letters they inspired was recently published as Pens Behaving Badly; and Carbs Behaving Badly which looks at what happens when someone kills dieting guru, Professor Tim Noakes.

She made her international debut as part of Helena S. Paige: the pen name for the writer trio of Nick, Sarah Lotz and Helen Moffett, who wrote a series of choose-your-own-adventure erotic novels, now published in 21 countries.

Fourie Botha, publisher of local fiction at Penguin Random House, says: “Paige has the golden touch. Dutch Courage is a complete delight and we’re so happy to be working with her.”