Consider Yourself Kissed

What happens when you find love, but life keeps getting in the way?

When she first meets Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is clever, witty, and – he insists – half an inch taller than the average British male. His charming four-year-old daughter, Zora, only adds to his appeal.

And yet ten years on, something important is missing from the life Coralie and Adam (though let’s face it, mostly Coralie) have built. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something she once had: herself.

Set against an eventful decade that included the soap opera of five Prime Ministers plus Brexit and Covid, Consider Yourself Kissed puts the subjects of love and family on a grand stage, bringing to life how the intimate drama in our homes inescapably competes for energy and attention with the shared drama of our times.

Consider Yourself Kissed is a captivating portrait of a woman in love which effortlessly balances sweetness with bite, the public with the personal, and humour with heart.

Review

Consider Yourself Kissedis a love story like no other: charming, warm, heartfelt and funny but with a truly razor-like authenticity. I absolutely loved every moment and didn’t want it to end! -- Liane Moriarty, internationally bestselling author of BIG LITTLE LIES

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, New York Times bestselling author of THE INTERESTINGS

Fabulous . . . It's clever, joyful, familiar and awkward, and so funny. -- Nina Stibbe, author of LOVE, NINA

Sweet and tender -- Pandora Sykes, author of HOW DO WE KNOW WE'RE DOING IT RIGHT?

I loved it, I loved them, I loved the Cazaletty interior details, I loved the social politics, I loved the actual politics, I loved the time span, I loved how complicated everyone was. I already know I will read it again . . . A beautiful romcom for grown-ups. -- Ella Risbridger, author of MIDNIGHT CHICKEN

Beautifully written, wise, funny, moving. Deftly fuses the personal and the political. A proper grown-up love story. -- Beth Morrey, author of SAVING MISSY

Utterly brilliant - so astonishingly clever, but with a core of love. It's generous, it's hopeful, it's one of the very best grown up love stories I have ever read. And wears its smartness so lightly, but it captures the strangeness of the past few years perfectly. I could not have adored it more. -- Daisy Buchanan, author of INSATIABLE and CAREERING

Consider Yourself Kissed is ringingly original and just absurdly good. Jessica Stanley captures all the tenderness and brutality of young motherhood without dulling either, and the relationships and writing are so bracingly, deliciously fresh that I wish there were a fresher word than fresh. And that the book were 1000 pages longer. -- Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

I loved it. I was grinning like an idiot for the first forty pages, and crying for the next forty . . . It links emotional and political events so brilliantly and is incredibly funny too. -- Emma Healey, million-copy bestselling author of ELIZABETH IS MISSING

Oh, how I loved and empathised with Coralie! Consider Yourself Kissed is funny, tender, authentic and incredibly moving -- Jennie Godfrey, Sunday Times bestselling author of THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS

About the Author

JESSICA STANLEY is an Australian novelist who moved to London for love in 2011. Before that, she worked in journalism, on the set of Neighbours, for the trade union movement and in advertising. Of all the jobs she’s had, writing Consider Yourself Kissed was the most fun. She lives with her husband and three children in Hackney.