‘No. You look perfect, Olly, just the way you are.’
‘Ditto.’ He gazes at me, again, with awe. ‘Jesus, Libby, am I the luckiest man in the world right now, or what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. You might be the luckiest man in Clapham …’
‘Better than that, Lib! Let’s agree that I’m at least the luckiest man in London, OK?’
‘Eight million people in London … half of them men … all right,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll give you that. You’re the luckiest man in London.’
‘That I am.’
‘And I’m the luckiest woman.’
He grins, his handsome face more alive than I’ve ever seen it in all these years. ‘Shall we just agree,’ he says, ‘that despite everything, somehow you and I have ended up the luckiest couple? Because honestly, Lib, I was just thinking this morning about all the ways this nearly went so wrong …’ He gives a little shudder. ‘You know I’m not a religious person, but sometimes I think there must have been someone out there rooting for us, somewhere. Don’t you think?’
I think of the Chesterfield, tucked away in Bogdan’s new nail bar, and I nod, emphatically.
‘I absolutely think so, Ol, yes. There was someone rooting for us. Maybe even more than one person.’
‘But we got there in the end.’ He pulls me a little closer still, and wraps his hands around my waist. ‘Better late than never.’
I do likewise, slotting my hands together in the small of his back and feeling my whole body simultaneously explode with desire and relax with contentment as I do so. I’m dimly aware that a middle-aged woman passing us has just let out an audible ‘Awwwwwww’ at the sight of a fully dressed bride and a smart, if paint covered, groom, snuggling up together in the middle of Clapham High Street.
‘Much better late,’ I agree, ‘than never. And you know what,’ I go on, ‘the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think it was always meant to be this way. I mean, sure, we could have been together all those years …’
‘… if I hadn’t bottled it every time I thought about saying something …’
‘… if I hadn’t been incapable of seeing what was staring me right in the face …’
‘… if I hadn’t talked myself out of it all the times I thought about just grabbing you and kissing you …’
‘… if I’d just stopped running around in circles trying to fake a big, romantic Hollywood happy ending with the wrong people,’ I finish, ‘well, then things wouldn’t have finished as perfectly as this. Because you never really know what you’ve got until you’ve nearly lost it for ever.’
Olly nods. ‘Though trust me,’ he says, softly, leaning closer to place his forehead against mine. ‘I always knew what I had in you, Libby. My best friend. My true love. My soulmate.’
The moment only gets better when he moves his lips to mine, and starts to kiss me.
And better still when a few moments later we break apart and, holding hands, start to stroll along the sunny street towards the wedding venue, where – after all these years – we’re finally about to become husband and wife.
As big, romantic Hollywood happy endings go, I don’t think it can possibly get any better.
Wherever they are, wherever they came from, I hope that three big, romantic Hollywood heroines are very proud of me.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With colossal thanks to Kate Bradley, Charlotte Ledger, Charlotte Brabbin and all the fantastic team at HarperFiction. Thanks also to Clare Alexander, to my amazing husband, Josh, and my even more amazing daughter, Lara.
Before Grace, there was Audrey and Marilyn …
Discover where it all began for Libby in these other HILARIOUS novels from Lucy Holliday
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-758225-9
Click here to buy now 978-0-00-758227-3
Both available to buy now
Hi Lucy, we can’t believe your brilliant series has come to an end *sob*! Are you going to miss Libby and the gang?
I’m going to miss them terribly! Stupidly, I don’t think I’d realized quite how much until I typed the final word of the final chapter of the final book. It had been a pretty intense experience meeting the deadline, so I assumed I’d be relieved when I made it over the finish line. The moment I finished I drooped miserably downstairs to find my husband, who was expecting me to be ecstatic and had a nice celebratory supper waiting. Suffice it to say he was pretty bemused when I spent the whole meal lamenting the fact it was all over, and that I’d never get to write about Libby or Dillon or Bogdan again.
How did the idea to conjure Hollywood’s most fabulous starlets in Libby’s hour of need come about?
I just really liked the idea of a kind of modern-day fairy godmother and have always worshipped Audrey Hepburn in particular. I’m not sure I had ever wondered before what it would be like to be friends with her, but I started thinking about some ideas for these books only a few months after my daughter was born and I was VERY sleep-deprived. From sleep deprivation (apparently) comes inspiration! I sort of began to put a few unconnected thoughts together in my muddled mind, and A Night in with Audrey Hepburn is what came out of it.
If you could have your own Hollywood fairy godmother, who would it be?
I think it would have to be Audrey, actually. Sorry, I know that’s a boring answer, but … well, wouldn’t everyone want her as a fairy godmother if they could?
Libby isn’t stranger to the odd cock-up or misdemeanour. Do you think we can learn a lot from her? Do the mistakes help to shape her in the end?
Yes, I think that the mistakes we make in our twenties and early thirties (or even longer, for some of us, come to think of it …) are the things that end up shaping us. One thing I very much enjoyed about Libby, as she came out on the page, was that she struck me as a person who, no matter what her mistakes, didn’t seem to live a life feeling embittered or full of regrets. Yes, she keeps messing up. Yes, her sister is the golden child who can do no wrong. Yes, she’s hopeless at relationships. But still nothing really seems to daunt her. She doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but in her own way she’s pretty steely, and I think the dreadful mistakes and cock-ups she does make are really just things that make her stronger still.
Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you have a particular place you like to work? Do you like to stick to a set routine?
Yes. I get up at a leisurely hour, take a long bath with oodles of Laura Mercier bath products, waft down to the kitchen where I make myself a perfect single espresso, before taking a gorgeous fruit plate up to my pristine study, where I spend a productive few hours tinkering with what I wrote the day before and then … oh, hang on, I have a three-year-old daughter, so my routine looks absolutely nothing like that. I basically hurl her in the direction of afternoon pre-school, or doting grandparents, or (more often than not) her bed in the evenings, before sprinting to the computer and writing like a demon until I feel less panicked and guilty about not meeting my word count for the day. I’d love a more sedate pace, and I’d REALLY LIKE MORE HOURS IN THE DAY, PLEASE, but on the positive side, my daughter is actually a huge source of inspiration and I actually don’t think I’d have written these three books without her around. I started when she was a tiny baby and now she’s a diva to rival any Hollywood goddess herself, so I feel like she has grown up with this trilogy.
What kind of books do you like to read yourself? Any favourite authors?
Currently, most of the books I’m actually managing to read are children’s books (!), so may I just thoroughly recommend Dr Seuss and anything illustrated by Nick Sharratt … When I have more time, I read anything and everything. I do actually love some amazing YA stuff – Patrick Ness and David Levithan spring to mind. I always, always adore Marian Keyes and would read the telephone directory if she decided to re-write it one day. I love Sophie Kinsella (who doesn’t?) and Jojo Moyes. And if I’m in the mood for something a bit weightier, I’m never anything other than gripped by the nove
ls of Hilary Mantel.
You’ve created some fantastic, memorable characters – the slightly hapless but lovable Libby; the eccentric Bogdan; Dillon the lothario … who was the most fun to write? And do you see yourself in any of the characters?
Bogdan, Bogdan, Bogdan. He was the most fun to write. If ever I got bogged down with difficult parts of the book, I’d set off on a Bogdan tangent just to cheer myself up. There are dozens of scenes featuring him that never even made it to Draft 2 or 3, let alone the final version, because he was just a blast to write. Dillon was a pretty close second (also partly because I have a bit of a crush on him) and Cass was always enjoyable to write too. In a different way, I really loved writing Nora, because I loved thinking about the history she and Libby had together. Olly was very, very hard to write, because their relationship is so complicated, and he got more difficult as the series went on. He was enjoyable, but in a different way.
As for whether or not I see myself in the characters … I can be quite a lot like Libby, because I’ve always been a hopeless dreamer and romantic. But she’s very much a mix of me and friends of mine (no names!), and of course a huge amount of her just exists only in my head.
And finally, we have to ask, if you could ask four celebrity guests (past or present) to a dinner party, who would they be?
I love this question. We tried this out one family Christmas, asking everyone at the table their dream dinner guests, and I think my poor husband was rather disheartened to hear my list, which was something along the lines of Daniel Craig; Christian Bale; Brad Pitt; Idris Elba … But with my sober hat on, and thinking about it FAR more seriously (obv) I’d have to say … Ava Gardner (not one of the goddesses I wrote about, but I think she’d be a hoot); Jennifer Lawrence; Michelle Obama and Angela Lansbury. I think that could make for quite an extraordinary girl’s night in. And Angela Lansbury could sing the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack to us all after we’d all had too much to drink and started to wallow. I wouldn’t say my three Hollywood icons of Audrey, Grace and Marilyn because I feel like I already know my own versions of them now from these books, and I’m happy leaving them where they are.
Thanks so, so much to everyone who’s read and enjoyed them! xxx
About the Author
Lucy Holliday’s first major work, a four-line poem called ‘The Postman is Very Good’, was completed shortly before her fifth birthday. It was such an enjoyable experience that she has wanted to be a writer ever since. A Night in with Audrey Hepburn was her first novel.
Lucy is married with a daughter and she lives in Wimbledon.
Also by Lucy Holliday
A Night in with Audrey Hepburn
A Night in with Marilyn Monroe
About the Publisher
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A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 33