Piatkus pre-empts journalist Duguid’s ‘essential’ memoir of divorce, dating and more 

Piatkus has pre-empted In Pursuit of Happiness: Mating, Marriage, Motherhood, Money, Mayhem by journalist and "divorce influencer" Stacey Duguid.

Jillian Young, editorial director at Piatkus non-fiction, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Robert Caskie at Robert Caskie Ltd for publication in June 2023.

The publisher’s synopsis reads: “Two years ago, Stacey Duguid’s happily ever after imploded messily, snottily, disastrously, and she is still clearing up the debris. The dream marriage she’d spent an entire lifetime pursuing shattered, leaving her half a person and angry. Who suggested ’happily ever after’ was even a given thing?

“In Pursuit of Happiness will bring you alongside Stacey’s honest and often humorous journey of divorce and dating, or, of mating, motherhood, marriage, money and mayhem. In mating, she’ll look at societal expectations and the ideological notion that in order to be happy, we must breed, marry and cohabit with a mate. In marriage, she will delve into the unrealistic view that a relationship is forever and challenge our somewhat Victorian approach. In motherhood, she takes a gritty look at the reality of having a child, leaving work, postnatal depression, school gate politics, puberty and, of course, being a single parent.

“We then journey to a marriage in breakdown and the subsequent emotional and financial fall-out, and the importance of being financially independent. Marriage soon turns back to mayhem. Enter: dating in midlife, blow jobs and exciting toy boys and boring middle-aged men. Through Stacey’s own story, she will give the reader the courage, confidence and conviction to know that they are not alone on this journey of womanhood and that we all have the right to pursue our own happiness.”

Duguid is a journalist and presenter. She has a weekly dating column in the Telegraph and frequently writes for the Sunday Times Style. In 2004, she joined British Elle as fashion editor. Featuring on the back cover of Elle for half a decade, the column was a fictionalised version of her life as a single woman living in London. She was the fashion editor of British Elle magazine for 11 years and was a founding team member of the now defunct online publication the Pool.

Duguid said: “Delighted but also somewhat nervous (of the police, my mother) to share this hot-mess of a life story. If there’s one thing I learned whilst writing this book, it’s the advice I wish I could give my younger self. Messy, chaotic and up to my eyeballs in debt, thanks to a penchant for shopping luxury goods on a low salary, I’d love to have a gentle word. 

“To the strangers with whom I exchanged vulnerable messages in the dead of night, women who described in heart-breaking micro-detail how newly constructed lives of difficult custodial arrangements and empty beds in children’s rooms rendered them without a sense of purpose, I am writing this book for you.”

Young commented: “When I read Stacey’s article in the Times, I knew she had to have a book. We are raised with preconceptions that we must get married, have children and live happily ever after, but what happens when, after all of this, we are not happy? And how do we get through this time? 

“Stacey has built a huge community of engaged followers desperate for her advice. This is Everything I Know About Love (Fig Tree) for the over 30s and will be essential reading for all women.”