Consider Yourself Kissed
-
-
4.3 • 21 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
A NATALIE PORTMAN'S BOOK CLUB PICK
‘CONSIDER YOURSELF KISSED IS THAT RARE THING: A NOVEL THAT TRULY LIVES UP TO THE HYPE’ DIANA REID
'I DIDN'T WANT IT TO END' LIANE MORIARTY
‘A DEEPLY ENJOYABLE MIX OF ROMANCE, SOCIAL COMMENTARY AND POLITICAL SATIRE’ SUNDAY TIMES
'BUY THIS FOR YOURSELF AND THEN BUY A FEW MORE COPIES FOR EVERYONE YOU KNOW.' MADELEINE GRAY, SATURDAY PAPER
'A DELIGHTFULLY GROUNDED ROMANCE AND A TREASURE . . . VERY HUMAN' GUARDIAN
'THIS SUMMER'S MUST-READ . . . A SPARKLY ENJOYABLE ROMANTIC COMEDY LIKE ONE DAY AND NORMAL PEOPLE' THE TIMES
‘A CLEVER AND FUNNY ROM-COM IN THE VEIN OF DOLLY ALDERTON’S GOOD MATERIAL’ ABC ARTS
Mother, writer, worker, sister, friend, citizen, daughter, (sort of) wife. If she could be one, perhaps she could manage. Trying to be all, she found she was none.
Coralie grew up in Australia but needed to escape some ghosts. Adrift in London, she meets witty, sexy, generous Adam—and his charming four-year-old daughter. Falling in love is fun. And then?
Coralie yearns for children of her own, and to become a writer. But her trips back to Australia change her perspective. Ten years on, something essential is missing.
In this unforgettable story about what ‘happily ever after’ might truly mean, Jessica Stanley writes about life as we live it, and reveals how our intimate dramas can get tangled up with the public events of our times.
An honest, entertaining and intelligent portrait of a woman in love, Consider Yourself Kissed will capture your heart.
Jessica Stanley is an Australian novelist living in London. She grew up in Melbourne, studied in Canberra, and worked in journalism and on progressive political campaigns before moving to the UK in 2011. Her Australian first novel A Great Hope was published by Picador in 2022 and was widely praised. Consider Yourself Kissed will be published in Australia, the UK, the US and internationally in 2025.
‘Consider Yourself Kissed is a smart literary love story and an absorbing family drama. Jessica Stanley follows her characters over the years as they make their way in the private, intricate, fragile world they create for themselves, and in the always-changing larger world. This is a deeply appealing and winning novel.’ Meg Wolitzer
‘Consider Yourself Kissed is an incisive story about the complicated task of loving and being loved. There’s so much in this smart book – about class and identity, family and work. Stanley’s idiosyncratic characters are the heartbeat of this novel. I could see them, full-bodied, jumping out of the page, interesting and strange and, by the end, I missed them all.’ Erin Riley, author of A Real Piece of Work
‘Consider Yourself Kissed is a tender, layered novel and one of the sharpest portrayals of marriage and motherhood I've ever read. It's also warm and clever and funny. I completely inhaled it. As with all my favourite novels, I wished I could read it forever.’ Alice Robinson, author of If You Go
'Jessica Stanley captures all the quiet ecstasy and devastation of being a lover, a mother, a woman in the world, and wondering what is left over for yourself. In Coralie's endless labour to do everything right and try to write, I felt achingly seen. I want to hand this gorgeous book to every mum I know with a hug.' Clare Fletcher, author of Love Match
‘I absolutely raced through this novel which I found so smart, funny and true to life. One of those books you’ll want to give all your friends once you’ve finished.’ Claire Powell, author of At the Table
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If most modern romance novels wrap up neatly without showing the hard work ahead, Jessica Stanley’s Consider Yourself Kissed does just the opposite. The London-set story of Coralie and Adam seems utterly charmed, with the Aussie expat finding her perfect match and even enjoying a bonus in Adam’s young daughter. But as the years go by and Adam’s writing career begins to eclipse her own, Coralie wonders what she has missed. Mingling a very true-to-life love story with a decade’s worth of political upheaval in both England and Australia, the book starts with Coralie on the cusp of her thirties and finishes at the dawn of her forties. Within that pivotal stretch of time, Stanley writes a stirring account of not just learning how to be a stepmother, but making the space to prioritise one’s own ambitions as a woman while playing so many rival roles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stanley (A Great Hope) serves up a charming and intelligent story of a 20-something Australian copywriter and aspiring novelist who builds a new life in London. Soon after arriving in England in 2013, Coralie meets political journalist Adam in a park and falls in love. He's amicably divorced from his ex-wife, Marina, with whom he shares custody of their four-year-old daughter, Zora. Coralie is intimidated by Marina's "intellectual credentials," and after she moves in with Adam and helps raise Zora, she senses that Marina views her as a "low-level functionary who nevertheless oversaw an important part of her life." Coralie's creative ambition keeps getting deferred; drafts of the novel she's working on live first under a sofa cushion and then in an IKEA bag under the bed. Adam, on the other hand, churns out books, including a biography of Boris Johnson. As the narrative progresses to the present day, Stanley portrays domestic and political developments with wry humor and sharp prose, depicting how the Brexit vote and a family loss each put a strain on the couple and how Coralie finally grapples with her desire to write. Readers will root for Stanley's endearing heroine.
