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.
Get it here!
Books by Sophie Ranald
Sorry Not Sorry
It’s Not You It’s Him
No, We Can’t Be Friends
Out with the Ex, In with the New
It Would be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t it?)
A Groom with a View
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?
You Can’t Fall in Love with Your Ex (Can You?)
A Letter from Sophie
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read Out with the Ex, In with the New. If you did enjoy it and want to keep up to date with all my latest releases, just sign up here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Writing a novel is like having a baby, or so the cliché goes. Now I’ve never gone through pregnancy, but if I were to extend that analogy to my experience writing this novel, it would involve morning sickness, swollen ankles, varicose veins, stretch marks, and then a doctor hacking away at my nether regions with a scalpel before saying he’d changed his mind and I’d have to wait another four months to meet my baby.
Okay, who am I kidding – writing is nothing like giving birth! Nonetheless, the process of gestating Out with the Ex, In with the New was a long and arduous one. The novel was first published in 2017 as The Truth About Gemma Grey, and now, more than two years later, I’m absolutely thrilled to be bringing it to you in its shiny new incarnation.
Out with the Ex, In with the New is the first in what was to become a series of four novels based around The Daily Grind, a coffee shop/café/restaurant/cocktail bar in trendy Hackney. Over the course of the four books, the place, its customers and the people who work there took on a life of their own. It sometimes feels to me like The Daily Grind must be positively Tardis-like in its ability to accommodate parties, food preparation, bicycle repairs and used vinyl sales – not to mention all the dramas played out inside its extremely stretchy walls and in the world beyond them!
If you’ve enjoyed this book, I hope you continue with the not-quite-a-series by reading Sorry Not Sorry, It’s Not You, It’s Him and No, We Can’t Be Friends. And if you’re coming to Out with the Ex, In with the New having read one or more of the other novels set in this world, I hope you’ve enjoyed finding out more about some of the characters you’ve met before!
Over the page, I have some words of abject gratitude for the many people who’ve helped me bring this novel to life in both its editions. But first of all, I wanted to say thank you to the most important person of all – you. I know how many wonderful books there are out there, and I feel privileged and grateful when you choose mine. I read every single review you post on Amazon – long or short, good or bad – and I respond personally to every reader who contacts me on social media or email. So please do get in touch and tell me what you think – I’d love to hear from you.
Love, Sophie
www.sophieranald.com
It’s Not You It’s Him
New Year’s Eve. The most overrated night of the year, right? I have to get through a night of enforced fun, drink all the prosecco and talk about new beginnings. But I don’t want new beginnings. I want my old beginning back.
It’s been ten days, two hours and forty-three minutes since Tansy got dumped. Two heartbreaking weeks since Renzo, who made her weak at the knees and dizzy with excitement, found out Tansy’s secret – and ended it on the spot.
Since then, she’s spent every evening scrolling through their old photos, drunk texted him twenty-six times (he stopped reading after five), and lost count of how many packets of Kleenex she’s cried her way through.
That’s where Operation Get Renzo Back comes in. She ropes in a new wing-woman, maxes out her credit card and accidentally-on-purpose bumps into him at every opportunity. Oh, and she finds a fake boyfriend, as you do…
But while she’s busy pretending, Tansy’s plan is thrown a major curveball. She has to learn the hard way that it’s not her, it’s him – and that sometimes, a break-up can end up being the making of you.
A fresh, funny and fabulous novel for anyone who has been dumped, got a post-break-up haircut, stalked an ex on Facebook, and then realised they were WAY better off without them. Fans of Sophie Kinsella, Lindsey Kelk and Matt Dunn will love this laugh-out-loud read.
Get it here!
No, We Can’t Be Friends
Everyone knows a girl like Sloane. She was always The Single One. She never brought a plus-one to weddings. She was the woman you’d set up with your single cousin. She joined ballroom dancing classes to meet men and was the queen of online dating.
But then she met Myles. Perfect Myles, with denim-blue eyes and a dazzling smile that melted her insides. She’d finally found The One.
Except she didn’t imagine that Myles’s idea of Happy Ever After would include Sloane battling an overflowing laundry basket, buying birthday cards for his family, and ironing his Calvin Klein underpants.
Then Sloane finds out that Myles has a secret.
The fairy tale is well and truly over. Her heart is blown to smithereens. Eating her weight in Ben & Jerry’s and large Meat Feast pizzas can only get Sloane so far before she has to make a decision… Can she learn to love herself more than she loved the love of her life?
No, We Can’t Be Friends is a brilliantly relatable, hilarious and feel-good novel that every woman with a waste-of-space ex HAS to read! If you’re a fan of romantic comedies by Sophie Kinsella and Lindsey Kelk, and TV shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin, pick up this laugh-out-loud book – you won’t regret it.
Get it here!
Acknowledgements
The world of vlogging was completely new to me when I started writing Out with the Ex, In with the New, and my research involved countless hours spent glued to YouTube, immersing myself in the channels and lives of Zoella, Tanya Burr, Estée Lalonde, Jim Chapman, Alfie Dayes and others. It’s left me with the greatest possible respect for these creators, who share often highly personal and sensitive aspects of their lives with their viewers, expose themselves to some seriously brutal sniping and trolling, then come back the next day, smile for the camera, and do it all again. It’s also left me with a much-increased make-up collection, some killer contouring skills, and a Christmas jumper I never knew I needed.
But there’s more to YouTube than Minecraft and make-up, as I discovered. Many content creators are passionate about raising awareness for causes they care about: politics, HIV prevention, online bullying, mental health – the list is endless. For Gemma, it was a realisation of the huge scale and insidious nature of domestic violence that inspired her to vlog about more than just cosmetics and clean eating. Women’s Aid, Refuge and a host of other charities do incredible work to support people in abusive relationships and help them to rebuild their lives – and do it in the face of ever-diminishing funding. We should all be thankful for the work they do. I’d also like to thank Clare Smith, who gave me some pointers from a police officer’s point of view about the process of reporting and arresting an offender.
My research then took me to Google’s palatial London HQ, where Tom Price and Thea O’Hear were kind enough to show me around and bring me up to speed on the practical and financial aspects of being a YouTuber. Any deviation from reality in Gemma’s experience is either poetic licence, or simple error on my part resulting from information overload! The writer Matt Whyman also provided invaluable insights into vlogging and introduced me to the strange online underworld where YouTubers’ fans and ex-fans gather to discuss their idols in minute – and often malicious – detail.
To find out more about how new media companies work, I visited Buzzfe
ed’s offices just off Oxford Circus. Although I named a character in the novel after him, I have to emphasise that Jim Waterson is a highly skilled journalist who I’m sure has never posted a cat meme in his life. Thanks for your help, Jim!
I am lucky enough to be represented by The Soho Agency, where an amazing team of people have held my hand throughout my journey as a writer. Araminta Whitley, Jennifer Hunt, Alice Saunders and Niamh O’Grady have my eternal gratitude for their expertise, kindness and ability to deliver a good shake when it’s most needed. Becca Allen deployed her ninja proofreading skills and spared my blushes.
I’m also unbelievably fortunate to have the best people in the business supporting me at my publisher, Bookouture. If Carlsberg did editing, they’d be putting Christina Demosthenous in a can for sure. And Noelle Holten, Kim Nash, Peta Nightingale, Alex Holmes and Alex Crowe are just a few of the others in the dream team who’ve supported me over the past two years. Thank you all.
At home, my partner Hopi has been by my side and had my back all the way, providing contacts, advice, kisses and gin with unstinting generosity. I love you very much. My darling Purrs has been the best companion any writer could want, making me laugh when I’m on the brink of despair and shouting at me when it’s time for an afternoon nap – and now little Hither has added another grumpy-faced literary critic to our family. I couldn’t have done it without them all.
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: 978-1-83888-247-1
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.
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