Get it here!
* * *
Is this all there is? I scraped the last dregs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream out of the bottom of the tub with my finger and licked it. It left a sticky smear on my phone’s screen when I typed into Google, ‘How to find love, sex and happiness.’
* * *
Charlotte has always been a good girl. But being good is getting boring…
* * *
She’s not just stuck in a rut – she’s buried in it up to her chin. The only company she has in bed is the back catalogue of Netflix and falling in love feels like the stuff of fairy tales. So when she stumbles across a popular podcast, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’, which challenges women to embrace their inner bad girl, she jumps at the chance to shake things up.
* * *
Old Charlotte would never ask for a stranger’s number, go on a blind date or buy lacy lingerie… But New Charlotte is waving goodbye to her comfort zone (with a side order of margaritas). And it turns out that good things happen to bad girls…
* * *
A fabulously feel-good novel that will make you laugh till you cry and leave you living life to the full, margarita in hand! If you’re a fan of romantic comedies by Sophie Kinsella, Lindsey Kelk or Matt Dunn, and love TV shows like Girls, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin, you won’t be able to put down this hilarious read.
* * *
Available now!
A Letter from Sophie
Thanks so much for reading It’s Not You, It’s Him. If you enjoyed it, and would like to stay up to date with all my latest releases, just sign up here. Your email will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
My story of writing It’s Not You, It’s Him is also the story of a little cat with a loud voice and a cross face.
In June 2018, when I’d just begun work on the novel, my partner Hopi and I went for one of our regular walks around the neighbourhood and came across an elderly cat, thin and dirty with matted fur, in a front garden. Neighbours told us that the cat had been living outside for some time, even during the snow earlier in the year.
Of course, once we knew this, we couldn’t turn our backs, so we spoke to her owner and offered to help look after the cat. Twice every day, throughout that long, hot summer, we visited to give her food and water. We took her to the vet (a mission that took several attempts and a lot of patience and chicken). After the drought broke and we found the cat soaking wet, we bought a shelter for her to use.
All this meant that writing the book took a great deal longer than it should have done – and I’m quite sure is part of the reason why Freezer plays such a significant role in the story! But it was worth it, because eventually, just before Christmas, once her owner acknowledged that she wasn’t able to cope with having a cat, we brought Hither home to live with us. Shortly afterwards, I finally submitted my book to my editor – meeting my deadline by the skin of my teeth – and, as I write this, Hither is snoozing on the duvet with her tummy full of chicken.
Writing – even when you’re not devoting a couple of hours a day to cat-wrangling – can be an arduous process. And launching a novel isn’t much easier: it’s a bit like walking into a room full of thousands of strangers and having to ask each one, individually, if they’ll be your friend. So it’s absolutely amazing when my readers reach out to me, either on social media (where you can see pictures of Hither and Purrs!) or by leaving a review.
I respond to every message I receive, and I read every single review, even if they sometimes smart a bit!
A huge thank you for reading It’s Not You, It’s Him.
Love, Sophie
Books by Sophie Ranald
Sorry Not Sorry
It’s Not You It’s Him
Acknowledgements
When I wrote my previous novel, Sorry Not Sorry, in which Tansy first appeared, I decided that being a buyer for an online fashion boutique was a sufficiently glamorous-sounding career for my beautiful – but minor – character to have. But over the course of the narrative, I became increasingly fascinated by Tansy and felt that she deserved to have her own story told. Oops – I was going to have to do some serious research to find out what being a fashion buyer actually involves!
Fortunately, my gorgeous and glamorous sister Juliet was on hand to help. Over the past ten years, Juliet’s biannual work trips from Auckland have been an absolute highlight of every spring and autumn for me, even though they left her knackered from traipsing round high streets and shopping malls in Hong Kong, London, LA and Frankfurt. On a wonderful holiday in South Africa to celebrate my late father’s ninetieth birthday, I was able to pick Juliet’s brains about what she got up to in her job. With patience and generosity, she shared the low-down on budgets, forecasts, samples and suppliers, and I have shamelessly used her knowledge in It’s Not You, It’s Him. Thank you, my darling sister.
Huge thanks also – as always – go to everyone at The Soho Agency, who have represented me for the past seven years. Araminta Whitley, Alice Saunders, Niamh O’Grady and Marina De Pass have provided unstinting support and excellent advice throughout the first year of my journey as a published author. You’re all amazing, and I am so grateful.
It’s been a delight and a privilege to work with the brilliant team at Bookouture. My editor, Christina Demosthenous, is a total book-whisperer. When I submitted this manuscript to her, I was deep in the Fear, thinking that it was all wrong and would never be right. But Christina’s absolutely rigorous attention to every detail of plot, character and structure turned It’s Not You, It’s Him into a novel I’m hugely proud of – and her passion, energy and humour make her enormous fun to work with. Thank you, Christina, you’re ace!
Also at Bookouture, the wonderful Peta Nightingale, who’s been involved in my writing career right from the beginning, has provided support, encouragement and advice. Alex Holmes keeps everything running like a well-oiled machine during the production process, while Alex Crow’s marketing genius made Sorry Not Sorry succeed beyond my wildest dreams. And the utterly lovely Noelle Holten is not only a cheerleader and a shoulder to cry on for the authors she looks after, but a seriously tough cookie, too. Huge thanks to you all.
At home, my darling Hopi and our precious Purrs and Hither have kept me going with cuddles, laughs and afternoon naps. I love you all, and I couldn’t have done it without you. Just a bit less hissing, please, cats.
Published by Bookouture in 2019
* * *
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
* * *
www.bookouture.com
* * *
Copyright © Sophie Ranald, 2019
* * *
Sophie Ranald has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work.
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
* * *
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78681-929-1
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
yscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 33
