Viking triumphs in six-way auction for Paul's 'life-changing' memoir on open marriage

Viking has triumphed in a six-way auction for Deepa Paul’s "revelatory" exploration of open marriage. 

Publishing director Harriet Bourton acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in a "significant" deal for Ask Me How It Works from Jo Unwin at Jo Unwin Literary Agency. Rights have been pre-empted in Germany (Hanserblau) and the Netherlands (Nieuw Amsterdam/Park). The memoir will be published in spring 2025.

"Sometimes a book arrives in my inbox that makes me neglect all my duties of the day, and I just can’t stop reading," said Unwin. "The whole [Jo Unwin Literary Agency] team had the same experience, and soon editors all over London had turned on their out-of-office replies. Fascinating, absorbing, hugely powerful and potentially life-changing, Ask Me How It Works feels like a book every woman needs to read as they contemplate their relationship to desire."

Paul’s memoir has been shaped by the common questions people ask her about her polyamorous marriage. Ask Me How It Works takes the reader on a "vulnerable, poignant and liberating journey" from the "exhilaration of falling in love in her homeland of the Philippines", newlywed life in Singapore, their move to Amsterdam and the "seismic change" brought by motherhood which shifted the marriage from a monogamous to an open one.

Bourton said: "Deepa’s memoir is candid, tender and relatable, looking at long-term love in all its nuance and complexity, comfort and compromise, pleasure and difficulty. It’s also a story that pushes the boundaries of what it means to live your life as fully and honestly as any woman might want to, which is a deeply inspiring message. We are hugely ambitious about making this extraordinary book a must-read for a truly broad audience in 2025."

Paul commented: "Growing up in the conservative, fiercely Catholic Philippines – the only country in the world apart from Vatican City where divorce remains illegal – I always felt at odds with the guilt, shame, and secrecy surrounding sex, intimacy and relationships. In many ways, Ask Me How It Works is the book I longed for when I realised I was different in the way I experienced, understood, and thought about love, and how I wanted to be loved. It’s the book I wish I’d had when I believed the life I loved and had chosen could not accommodate the me I longed to become; when I thought that marriage and motherhood were irreconcilable with female desire.

"I wrote it for those who love and are willing to being surprised by love, and as an open invitation for all who are curious and wonder: Is there more? Is it worth it?"