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

I know lots of people don’t have access to the behind-the-paywall Times content, so here it is in full:

The stuff of life

Every holiday has a surprise literary hit. Mine was The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs, by Christina Hopkinson. This should be compulsory reading for all working couples with small children, since it encapsulates precisely, but with plenty of humour, the madness of the modern working family. In particular, the pitfalls of feminism (yes, you have the right to work but that doesn’t mean you get out of doing the laundry and most, if not all, of the childcare) and the abyss between mothers who work and those who don’t. It is also, in the end, a rather sweet romantic tale — and written in such as way as to be readable with two small children in tow.

Here’s a link to it. You can also read a great review of the Pile there too.

This will be the first time I’ve been away without my family. Instead of feeling liberated and young again, I feel pathetically scared and unsure of how I can cope without my permanent accessories. Any good New York tips welcome since I haven’t been there for over a decade. Yikes, I haven’t been there this millennium…