The Friend Zone Experiment in London

Submitted: 22nd August 2024

London with Zen Cho

Footloose and fancy free in London? That’s what led Zen Cho to write her novel The Friend Zone experiment!

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The Friend Zone Experiment Zen Cho

Zen Cho, tell us more………..

Zen Cho

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

I lived in London for nearly a decade, in my footloose twenties. I wrote THE FRIEND ZONE EXPERIMENT partly as an excuse to revisit the city, both in my imagination and in person.

In THE FRIEND ZONE EXPERIMENT, Singaporean fashion designer Renee discovers she’s in the running to inherit her wealthy family’s business. Then she bumps into her university sweetheart, pianist Ket Siong, who broke her heart ten years ago. They’re irresistibly drawn to each other, but both have secrets that could threaten their connection.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

Anyone who’s visited London will know it’s a number of different cities folded into the same point in space. Ket Siong and Renee live in different Londons: broke London and flush London. Luckily for their romance, there’s no admission fee for many of the city’s most iconic locations.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

Hyde Park

Renee lives in Kensington, on the outskirts of Hyde Park. To afford her postcode, you or your forebears would probably have to have ripped off an entire country.

Anyone may enter Hyde Park itself, however. The park has played host to everything from music festivals to trapeze lessons, Peter Pan to Queen Victoria’s dead husband. Renee trudges through it sadly after getting dumped by her boyfriend. Ket Siong haunts it, hoping to meet her. It’s the sort of place where anything could happen – where you could have a life-changing epiphany, or meet your one true love.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The Victoria & Albert Museum

The V&A is my favourite London museum. Renee and Ket Siong meet each other for the first time in years at a private view reception there. Renee’s chasing a business opportunity. Ket Siong’s hunting down the truth of a tragedy. Neither is prepared for love to enter their life.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The National Gallery / Trafalgar Square

Renee confronts her dickhead ex on the terrace outside the National Gallery, looking over Trafalgar Square. It’s hard to find the quiet and privacy necessary to have a really good brangle in Central London. If you don’t want to be overheard, your best option is to choose somewhere really busy. Trafalgar Square certainly qualifies, with its stone lions and fountains and tourists and protests.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The Café at Foyles Charing Cross Road

Foyles is one of my favourite London bookshops. I felt confident about sending Ket Siong to the fifth floor café for a pivotal meetup. After all, I’d been there plenty of times. Even now, sitting on my sofa, over 120 miles away, I can visualise the space. Exposed ceilings, wooden tables and chairs, the row of cakes and pastries. Always bustling and often slightly too warm.

Yet the café now represents to me the untrustworthiness of my own brain. I had a distinct memory of the view of Charing Cross Road out of the café’s windows. When I visited after writing the scene set there, I realised the windows did not look down on Charing Cross Road. My memory was wholly fabricated. Reality’s never quite what you think it is.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

Kanada-Ya Carnaby

This tiny, trendy ramen joint, round the corner from the famous Carnaby Street, is not the only Asian restaurant that appears in the book. But it’s probably the most important. It’s here that Renee and Ket Siong have a quarrel that lays bare both their secrets. They’re upset enough that they don’t eat their ramen. Which is a shame, because I tested the ramen and it’s pretty good.

I mostly sent the characters here to have an excuse to feature the Carnaby Street Christmas lights. There’s a different theme every year. My favourite was probably the year you could walk below illuminated lyrics from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody – like living in a karaoke video.

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The Friend Zone Experiment Zen Cho

Map of locations in The Friend Zone Experiment

The way I felt when I came upon those lights – the delight of stumbling, without planning, onto something amazing – was one of the things I loved most about living in London. It’s something I’ve tried to recreate in THE FRIEND ZONE EXPERIMENT. What’s the point of writing romance if it doesn’t transport you to another world?

Thank you so much Zen!