April 8, 2013: Margaret Thatcher dies.
From the Guardian:
Margaret Thatcher, who has died aged 87, was a political phenomenon. She was the first woman elected to lead a major western power; the longest serving British prime minister for 150 years; the most dominant and the most divisive force in British politics in the second half of the 20th century.
As I couldn't think of anything suitably Prime Minister-y (other than House of Cards or Love, Actually), I shall point you to Lee Nichols' Deception, a paranormal in which a girl's parents go missing, so she is forced to move across the country and enroll at Thatcher Academy:
YAY, FUN. Emma was likable³ and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, and her personal history with mental illness (OR SO SHE WAS LED TO BELIEVE) made her refusal to believe in what she was experiencing understandable*, and made her decision to take the leap and believe in what she was seeing all the more impressive. By throwing in a few nods to the conventions of the genre, the author made it clear that Emma hadn't been raised in the I've Never Watched A Horror Movie Or Read A Ghost Story bubble that so many heroines of the genre grow up in.
And, just for kicks, I will also point you back to my post about Karen Mahoney's Iron Witch (I picked it because it was the closest title I could find to Iron Lady, not because I'm making any sort of political statement, yadda yadda yadda):
Alexander Grayson, with his luminous green eyes and his too-long-bangs and his wisdom beyond his years and his tendency to say things like "I'm getting an appalling crick in my neck" rubbed me the wrong way from minute one. I never believed in him, because he read like an author's creation, and not like a real person. He seemed like a composite of every Hot Tragic Hero that I've read about in the last few years.
Other ideas?