I’m thrilled to report that, essentially, they love it. Here are their thoughts, generally welcoming it as a fresh approach to the genre: ‘At long, long last… a women’s fiction title that hasn’t resorted to a headless woman, romantic urban purple or any of the other slavishly followed trends in the genre. (Do take a look at their site for whole galleries of examples of such looks).

They do have two minor quibbles with it, not with the whole concept but more that it didn’t go far enough. I do see their point, but I love the strap line and don’t feel that the hand compromises the overall gender neutrality of the cover.

Despite these teeny-weeny points, they conclude ‘this is a big success both on the shelf and online… nice work.’

Am really thrilled with this response and want to thank Sarah Christie, the designer responsible for it at Hodder, for her hard work.

My first response was envy given that book clubs are such a great way of selling lots of copies of your book. Why wasn’t mine chosen, stalwart parent that I am? Then of course this was followed by relief, since the idea of people I see everyday in the playground discussing my book, possibly critically, fills me with horror. Not to mention, all the borderline pervy sex scenes that I am compelled to write.

This got me thinking about being a writer and the whole issue of your work being under scrutiny in a book club type setting. My books aren’t obvious book club candidates, I think, but other writers must have this all the time. My friend Ali Knight discovered that a woman she knew had discussed hers, Wink Murder, with a very positive response, but it didn’t stop her dying inside as she was being casually told of her status at a party. I have offered myself out to any book clubs that wish for an author to join them in conversation about The Pile, but as yet haven’t been taken up on this. I can see it’s a situation ripe for embarrassment and humiliation, although I suspect that most book group members would be far too polite and diplomatic to exploit fully this avenue.

Years ago, I remember reading Jenny Colgan recounting how her first novel was discussed by an office-based book group that she’d been a member of. I’ve managed to find it on the Guardian’s website (written in 2002):

‘When I finally wrote a book and left the office they reviewed my book in the book club. I was not invited. “How was it?” I asked my mole on the inside afterwards. “Bloody,” he said. “Utter carnage. Let us never ever speak of it.”’

I suspect I’m too fearful of such a reaction to ever actively encourage the myriad book group members I know to pick up any of mine. I’d love to hear from anyone who has discussed though (with the caveat that they must be utterly polite and sensitive to my delicate feelings).

*Ah the joy of the inner London primary school, where the nativity play is filmed by BAFTA awarding winning director and published writers do the PTA newsletter. But this is nothing in comparison to a recent art project at the school which was overseen by a dad, better known as a Chapman brother.

This was all in response to  Rachel Cusk’s book Aftermath in which she discusses her separation from her husband, an extract of which was published in both the Sunday Telegraph magazine and the Guardian (yes, them again). Cue much groaning on all fronts, judging by the online comments.

I’ve done a few first-person pieces myself and these are questions I ask myself. I’ve written one for this week’s Guardian Family section in fact, here. I evidently think that this level of ‘confession’ is acceptable, while at the same time occasionally balking at that of others. There’s a valid argument that I’m making a false distinction, that any exposure of your family is wrong in whatever context. I’m aware that it’s like putting on fake tan – a little bit is a good thing, but lots of us are unable to find the line where it goes orangely wrong. I have the same problem with judging how blonde to go and I daresay I’d have issues about knowing when I’d lost too much weight if such had a thing had even nearly happened to me. From the inside, your perspective can become skewed. There is, as any reality star can tell you, an addictive element to publicity that people who make a living out of such a solitary profession, do well to be wary of.

I read Lucy Cavendish in the Standard recently on that fact that her sex life with her husband had dried to nothingness, illustrated with a picture of the author looking, well, rather sexy in a fitted dress. That’s an example of something I wouldn’t do because the very act of writing it would have repercussions on my behaviour and even my life choices. I suppose that’s one useful precept – does the writing and publication of this change the outcome of my or somebody else’s life?*

I’m not judging Lucy nor myself for having read it. What I am wondering is how I can make a proper division between that topic and some that I’ve written about. I once wrote a piece about the tyranny of National Childbirth Trust antenatal groups. I thought it was pretty light-hearted and not to be taken seriously, but it caused a terrible furore, not least among the NCT group obliquely referenced. There were meetings to discuss the 600 words and letters sent out in response. I was naively shocked, expecting them to somehow know that there is a different sort of reality in these published reminiscences. Not that what I wrote was untrue, but that aspects of truth are exaggerated for comic effect, while the many good things about an experience are ignored.

Tim Lott points out that with the Internet, these pieces have a far longer life than they once would have done. ‘It’s inhibitory,’ he writes, ‘because you know that your kid is five now, but when they’re 17 they can Google my article and read it’. The piece I mention above was published in the Telegraph and it was extremely unlikely that anyone connected to a Stoke Newington NCT group would have ever taken that paper, but of course it had its own permanence and url, creating this longevity and fuelling the row. I remember reading an editor in the Guardian explaining that they almost never take down pieces from the site, but that they made an exception for a story in which a journalist wrote of how her son, who must have been around 4 or 5, liked cross dressing. Now that he was at school and older, his friends had discovered the piece and were teasing him for his now neglected hobby. Pre-internet, this (as I recall) charming piece would have been a lovely yellowing news clipping for the family to chuckle over, but had become something very different, which the paper was quite right to remove.

I’m trying to force myself into making a conclusion about this in order to apply it to my own work, but can’t. I’m going to instead treat each piece individually and always to stop to examine the dangers and repercussions of what I write, both now and in its long lifetime on the Internet. That and to never, ever, read the comments at the bottom of the online edition…

*Subsequent to writing this post, Lucy Cavendish has written a piece in the Times about having separated from her husband. Which means that either she was writing about her lack of sex life having already decided to separate or it contributed. Either way, shows how messy these things can get.

There is some excitement – ads on websites such as Mumsnet and these (pictured) rather beautiful table ads in Coffee Republic. Sadly I don’t have a branch near me or I’d be in there stroking it lovingly, and possibly being arrested in the process.

Anyway, the book is very reasonably priced with a new even lovelier cover so even those who’ve already got the hardback might want a companion piece.

Any writer will tell you that it can be a teeny bit irksome when people at parties tell you that of course they’d write a brilliant novel or that they have a great novel within them. It’s not that they shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to write, far from it, but it’s disconcerting to discover that they have this belief despite never having written a word since university. It might be that should they choose to, their work would be a masterpiece, but no unwritten book has ever been read. Most of writing is just, well, writing.

Wendy is an example to us all. I remember her very casually saying to me along the lines of ‘oh, I’ve written 20 books’. Or it may have been 30 or even 40. At the time, she’d had only one published, a very well-received memoir of the artist Grayson Perry. But she wrote as others might walk or eat, without show or angst, just instinctively and enthusiastically without immediate reward.

The other striking thing about Wendy is how different her working methods are to my own. The American expression ‘plotter or panster’ describes our differences, the latter referring to writers who do things by the seat of their pants. I am organised to the point of anal – with detailed plot summaries and character descriptions done before I start the book, every chapter neatly saved into its own document, all written directly onto a computer. Wendy writes in longhand, with random pieces of paper stuffed into folders, eventually typing it onto a word processor in one long stream. Her way is far more romantic and part of me views it as more authentic and creative than my engineered approach. On the other hand, like anyone organised looking at someone else less so, I find even thinking of doing it like this gives me a headache.

Whatever method, we both got their in the end so here’s a little teetotal teatime toast to ourselves.

I’d welcome any thoughts about these covers – do you prefer one or the other? What are the elements that you like, or don’t like, about these two or alternatives? Covers are a very contentious issue. Many female writers that I know feel that their books are pushed towards pink or loopy writing, or the ubiquitous girl in a red dress that’s so popular now. At the same time, publishers want the books to have an immediate resonance with readers scanning the shelves at the shop or supermarket and one way to do that is to have a look that echoes previously successful books.

As you can see, I don’t have this issue with Hodder for which I’m grateful. Their cover for David Nicholls’ One Day was so successful that it’s paved the way for this pleasingly minimalist look.

Fingers crossed that readers feel the same way…

PS did you see how I avoided the phrase ‘judging a book by its cover’ in this blog post? Oh tarnation, I’ve just blown it.

When I’m feeling energetic and web literate and I’ll scan in the Polish and Slovenian editions too as I’m always interested in different cover designs. I’m also reliably informed that in the Polish edition the title is rendered ‘How I didn’t murder my husband’.

*A Dutch speaker, Dijan, did correct me! Huwelijk means marriage, which makes more sense. I wish I weren’t a anglophone monoglot… Thanks too to Jolanda who also picked me up on my woeful Dutch. I always feel ashamed when I hear the perfect English of Northern Europeans – usually a lot better than that spoken by native speakers.

She also pointed out this piece in De Telegraaf, which is Holland’s biggest newspaper. It’s in anticipation of an interview with me that took place yesterday in London with a really interesting young journalist called Elske van der Velden.

Thanks to both of them.

For the full review go here.

Now that’s a lovely review, but in a spirit of full disclosure I’ll also link to a couple of more mixed ones from the States (local papers, pah). They both like the style of my writing, but are unsure about the likability of the heroine. I feel rather defensive of my Mary, but obviously she’s not everyone’s cup of tea/skinny latte. I like heroes to be flawed and her journey from sometimes unjustifiably stroppy to more pragmatic is central to the book. She does divide people and by choosing to make my protagonist not entirely sympathetic, then there’s a tightrope to be walked. Some readers fall on one side of it. I’d be interested to have any feedback about readers responses to her and whether it changes in the course of the book.

The Buffalo News

The Washington Times