Fourth Estate buys Candy's guide to mothering teenage girls

Fourth Estate has bought journalist Lorraine Candy's first book, a “candid, helpful and hilarious” guide to the many unexpected challenges of mothering teenage girls.

Head of non-fiction Louise Haines bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Robert Caskie at Robert Caskie Ltd for 1001 Things Only Mothers of Teenage Girls Know: the Manual. It will publish in spring 2021.

The book is billed as “part guide, part memoir and part love-letter to Lorraine’s two teenage daughters”.

Candy is a mother of four with over a decade of experience of writing about parenting in national newspapers and magazines, including columns with the Sunday Times Magazine and Daily Mail. She is also the co-host of the "Postcards from Midlife" podcast which also tackles parenting adolescents. Formerly the editor-in-chief of Sunday Times Style, she is now focusing full-time on writing books.  

Haines said: “There has been hardly anything published to date about this trickiest stage of parenting. Lorraine is the most acutely observant, knowledgeable and funniest writer about teenage daughters and also about being a mum navigating the terrain of midlife at the same time.”

Candy added: “I have found adolescence to be the toughest and loneliest of times on the parenting journey. I have been immersed in the lives of teenage girls for almost five years and it has all come as quite a shock. If I’d known what was coming in advance, I would certainly have been less worried, more patient and seen more humour in the situation. I’m hoping my book will light the way for other mums facing life with teenage girls, other mums caught in the perfect storm of parenting tomorrow's bright and brilliant women just as they go through their own midlife unravelling.”