Press Association News, February 8, 1993, by  Teilo Colley
"Love at last for coffee's golden couple"
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Coffee lovers everywhere today get their chance to read how 
the Gold Blend couple finally find love when 150,000 copies 
of the-book-of-the-TV advert hit Britain's shops. Love Over 
Gold, a #3.99 paperback coffee potboiler, will provide the 
answers to one of television's most enduring questions. 
Would the couple, whose tantalisingly slow TV commercial 
courtship has gripped the nation for five years, finally 
develop an interest in something stronger than coffee? At 
its launch in London yesterday, author Susannah James was 
asked if the handsome, suave character played by actor Tony 
Head and Sharon Maughan's sultry, sophisticated Gold Blend 
woman finally become lovers. "Yes," she replied. "But it's 
all done in extremely good taste." Corgi has published 
150,000 copies of the 343-page novel which goes on sale 
today - in time for Valentine's Day. Ms James, a pen name 
used by the crime novelist Susan Moody, was given the task 
of developing the romance of TV's most famous commercial 
couple, who first hit the screen in 1987. Since then, 11 
different commercials by advertising agency McCann-Erickson 
have charted the course of their courtship, generating huge 
sales for Nestle's up-market instant coffee brand. The last 
instalment in December last year, which saw the man plucking 
Miss Maughan's character from the arms of an Italian 
lothario and declaring his love, made national newspaper 
front pages. The book takes the affair a little further with 
the two characters, Alexandra Maitland, a thirtysomething 
magazine journalist, and art dealer Matthew Prescott, 34, 
contemplating marriage. But as the author points out, 
followers of the romance are still left in suspense. "It's 
enigmatic. It's a good read, but when you've finished the 
book you still want to know more," said Ms James, who 
described the project as "tremendous fun". Miss Maugham flew 
in from Los Angeles, where she is filming Stake Out II with 
Richard Dreyfuss, to help launch the book. "I was surprised 
to read about myself. It was interesting to read somebody 
else's perception of the character," she said. Asked if she 
was prepared to appear in any further commercials or even a 
movie, Miss Maugham said: "As long as they keep paying me." 



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