Viking wins 10-way auction for Bryony Gordon's 'blisteringly funny' debut novel

Viking has triumphed in a 10-way auction for Bryony Gordon’s "blisteringly funny, irresistibly relatable" first novel, People Pleaser.

Publishing director Harriet Bourton acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Nelle Andrew of Rachel Mills Literary. The novel will be published in hardback, e-book and audiobook in spring 2026.

Viking said: “People Pleaser poses a brilliantly simple question: what if you woke up one morning and could only please yourself? That’s what happens to Gordon’s heroine, Olivia Greenwood, after she spends an evening with her new Gen-Z assistant who calls her out on all the ways Olivia tries to please others and makes herself smaller and unhappier in the process.

“Twenty cigarettes, a bottle of red wine (or two) and a hallucinogenic gummy later, and Olivia wakes up the next morning with absolutely no sh*ts to give about pleasing anyone but herself. Utterly brilliant, riotous chaos follows, and Olivia starts to feel bolder, braver and a bit more able to face some of the darker feelings lurking underneath.”

Viking dubbed the debut as "blisteringly funny, irresistibly relatable". Bourton said: “When Nelle told me Bryony was writing a novel, I knew I was going to love it. She builds such an immediate chemistry with the reader in her non-fiction writing, and that hilarious, authentic candour shines off the page in People Pleaser too.

“It’s Marian Keyes meets The Midnight Library – deeply relatable about this particular aspect of mental health and reassuringly hopeful that you can overcome it.”

Preena Gadher, managing director of Penguin General, added: “The meeting with Bryony was electric: there was so much energy among the team. We are hugely ambitious about launching Bryony’s fiction career with creativity and longevity and getting People Pleaser into as many reader’s hands as possible.”

Gordon is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Wrong Knickers, Mad Girl and You Got This, Glorious Rock Bottom, No Such Thing as Normal and Mad Woman, all of which were published by Headline.

Gordon also founded Mental Health Mates, a nationwide network of volunteer-led support walking groups, and hosts the “Mad World” podcast to help revolutionise the way mental health is discussed.

Gordon said: "I’ve wanted to make the leap from being a fiction reader to writer for a long time. People pleasing is at the root of all the mental health issues I’ve written about in my non-fiction, but it’s the one I struggle to get a handle on. Exploring it in fiction has helped me confront it and shake it by the shoulders. It’s a tool of the f*cking patriarchy, a thing that cripples women quite uniquely and invisibly. 

"And while you can get support for alcoholism or OCD, there is no rehab for people pleasing. It’s an important subject that’s taken quite lightly, even viewed as a positive quality, but it makes people miserable. I wanted to rip up the rulebook for one woman and see what might happen. I hope readers will feel seen by the book as well as entertained – they can laugh in recognition, feel less alone and, most importantly, more able to please themselves. Basically, my book is like really fun therapy."