New2theScene

Kristen Bailey

Kristen Bailey

Mother-of-four, rum-drinker, binge-watcher, receipt hoarder, enthusiastic but terrible cook. Kristen also writes. She used to write short fiction before her first books were published in 2016. She was long-listed for the Comedy Women in Print Prize in 2019, and since then, she’s kept writing. Do her books have a genre? Who knows? It’s contemporary-women’s-humorous, sometimes romantic, often feel-good fiction for people who don’t mind a knob joke. She’s known for her Callaghan Sisters series, the first of which, HAS ANYONE SEEN MY SEX LIFE? was a Top Ten Kindle Bestseller. Her most recent book, GREAT SEXPECTATIONS, has been nominated for an RNA award. Kristen lives in Hampshire, UK. She also is a whizz at world capitals and thinks pineapple belongs on pizza. Don't fight her on this.

When they spoke to New2theScene

1. Why do you write novels?

I’m a storyteller. I was constantly making up stories as a child. I loved reading, writing, creating and so I think it’s always been in me.  I was made to think it wasn’t a viable career though so I always kept it as a hobby and it wasn’t until I had a career break that I realised I could make it a full time job.

2. Who inspired you?

My kids. Nothing kicks your arse into gear more than having kids and realising you want them to see you as a role model, achieving your life goals. In terms of other writers, David Nicholls is my all-time hero – his books are some of my all-time favourites. I also adore Marian Keyes.

3. What’s the essence of your style? The part, if removed, is not your voice anymore?

Humour, humour, humour. Apparently, I’m funny and without that it’s just words.

4. What was your dance-around-the-kitchen moment in writing?

I used to dance a lot – when I signed contracts, won competitions and books did well. But there was a moment a while back when someone wrote me the loveliest review. They told me how much they liked my book, how much it meant to them and made them laugh. That was such a pick-me-up in what can be a very up and down business.

5. What do you want to accomplish in your writing career?

NETFLIX SERIES! Some sort of adaptation would be amazing – I’m know exactly who I’m casting too, haha. But now I just want longevity. If I’m still writing and selling books in ten years time - that would be the dream.

6. Can you ever envisage not writing novels - running out of ideas or energy?

Oh, I do! I burn out easily but I find the way to deal with that is to take a break and rest my mind. After that, an idea for a book always comes to me when I least expect it and I find myself drawn back into writing again.

7. What advice would you give to your younger self?

Remember you did that career compatibility test when you were fifteen and it told you that you were 95% suited to being a writer? Remember when that teacher told you it wasn’t a proper job, SHE LIED.

8. Away from writing, what are your passions, and what do they mean to you?

I have four kids so it doesn’t leave much time for passions but I love music and TV. My random fact is that I’m vice chairwoman for a youth football club and a director for a non-league club. Don’t ask me about the offside rule though…

9. How would your best friend describe you?

Overthinker, slightly funny, always dancing, average cook, never answers her phone, terribly competitive at board games, unapologetic lover of pop music, never forgets a name.

10. What’s a significant question to ask you, that no other interview has to date, and what’s the answer, only for New2theScene?

What would be your ideal writing day?

I wake up in a breezy, tastefully decorated beach hut by the sea with good WiFi. Have a swim, a coffee, a shower, wash my hair without interruption. Write 5K words that make sense without getting distracted by Instagram. Have another coffee. Sushi for lunch. 5K more words. Endless supply of biscuits and drinks. End the day watching the sunset, hand in hand with Pedro Pascal. Nando’s for dinner.

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Books by

Kristen

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Five Gold Rings

What does Christmas look like to you? A tree rammed with homemade decorations, a mantelpiece weighed down with cards, Mum telling Dad not to put the chocolate wrappers back in the tin, a festive film on television...

It should definitely not look like a naked woman on her knees noshing off your boyfriend of three years in the shower.

It’s Christmas Eve eve, and the holidays are not off to a good start for, er, Eve.

After the surprise and shock of catching her boyfriend cheating, Eve – totally devastated – reacts by throwing the gifts she’s selflessly bought and wrapped for HIS family out of the window. But while doing so she discovers her own present from Chris under the Christmas tree: an engagement ring, bought at the jeweller’s where she works. What the jingle bells is going on? And what was he thinking?

Confused and with her Christmas plans in tatters, Eve rocks up at the jeweller's for some tea and sympathy with her lovely employers, Mr and Mrs Caspar, who quietly put in a distress call to her colleague, Joe. Eve doesn’t know that Joe is secretly in love with her, but her bosses do, and they know he’s just the person Eve needs to comfort her in a crisis.

Joe gets the call while moonlighting as a buff butler at a Christmas-themed hen do and races across town to help console Eve. But as he learns about her heartbreak, the Caspars realise a crucial delivery has gone astray: five gold rings destined for Christmas proposals and weddings have been sent to the wrong address.

Can Eve and Joe retrieve the rings and get them to their rightful owners in time?

As they set off in Joe’s ancient mini – Joe still dressed as a sexy elf and Eve just a liiiittle bit tipsy – their adventure begins. With three proposals and two weddings to get to, it’s up to Eve and Joe to save Christmas.

An utterly hilarious novel for anyone looking for festive romance with all the feels. If you have a hot date with Love Actually every Christmas you will adore this gloriously funny and unmissable festive read.

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Sex Ed

Ed is a virgin. I didn’t know those existed – not at our age anyway. Maybe he was so drunk that he forgot all the times he’s had sex. I wish I could get that drunk.

Mia and Ed have been best friends ever since they began teaching at the same school. Ed bakes cake for the staff, Mia eats the cakes. Ed can’t control his students, Mia sorts them out. Mia can’t work the photocopier, Ed shows her how.

Mia’s love life might be chaotic but she’s totally devoted to her super-tidy, cat-owning, geeky but not bad-looking best friend. So, when Mia discovers Ed is still a virgin at twenty-eight, she decides to take matters into her own hands and teach him the skills he needs to seduce the pretty new maths teacher, Caitlin.

It’s an education that involves panic-buying sex toys and buddy-watching porn, and when Ed graduates with an A+ for effort – and begins dating the perfect-on-paper Caitlin – Mia knows her work is done.

But is Caitlin as sweet as she seems? And could Mia’s feelings for Ed be stronger than she realised?

A fabulously feel-good and unmissable read for fans of rom-coms by Sophie Kinsella, Mhairi McFarlane and Beth O’Leary and anyone who loved Sex Education, Teachers and When Harry Met Sally. If you’ve ever cringed at the memory of your first time, nursed a broken heart with wine and takeout, or fallen for a friend, you’ll love this hilariously funny, sexy, heartwarming story.

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Great Sexpectations

What’s wrong with a little bit of faking it?

After Josie got dumped by her ex through a note on the fridge, she hasn’t let herself get close to anyone. But when she meets Cameron at a Halloween party, who turns up in the same Ghostbusters costume as her, it’s virtually impossible to stay away.

Cameron, a curly haired video-games designer with dazzling blue eyes, the sexiest dimples and the same encyclopaedic knowledge of movies as Josie, seems too good to be true.

And maybe he is… Because there’s one teeny tiny problem as Josie falls madly in love. Cameron has no idea that Josie lives at home with her ex-porn star parents and their dog Dave, or about the minor detail that she works for their sex toy empire. After her ex broke up with her because of the family business, Josie decides to tell a little white lie.

But it’s just a matter of time until the truth comes out. When it does, will Cameron end things, leaving Josie with only Dave the dog for company? And what if she’s not the only one who’s keeping secrets?

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Am I Allergic to Men?

Could things get any worse?!I lost my memory, I’m so single I’ve basically got an allergy to men, and my own cat hates me.

‘Lucy! If you can hear me, squeeze my hand!’

That’s the first thing I hear when I wake up in hospital. Then my sister drops a bombshell: I’ve been in a coma.

It gets worse. In my head, it’s 2009 and I’m seventeen. Somehow, I need to remember the last decade…

Plan A: Track down my exes. Highlights include a one-night stand with a guy in a Batman costume, and balcony sex that gave the neighbours a nervous breakdown.

Plan B: Get flirty. Lowlights include a fling with someone hairier than a yeti.

Plan C: Figure out why I have more exes than underwear. Am I allergic to men?

As I piece together my past, I find a mysterious note: ‘Oscar, 9th February’. But I have no idea who Oscar is… Determined to find out, I uncover a secret I’ve been hiding from everyone.

When the truth comes out, will my memory return? Will I get my life back? Will I ever cure my singledom? And how can I make my cat stop hating me?!

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How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?

If you’re wondering how much wine fixes a broken heart, here are some suggestions: a glass the size of your head, a bathtub, an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Best served chilled, and with a straw.

Three years ago, Grace’s heart was blown to smithereens. Ever since then, she lives by a set of rules to protect herself.

They include: only getting attached to her cookie jar, wild nights meaning evenings alone with her label-maker, and never looking men directly in the eye.

But her sisters refuse to let thirty-one-year-old Grace live like a grandma. They have their own ideas on how to piece her back together.
New Grace goes ‘out out’. Translation: breaks into fifteenth-century replica ships, screams ‘aye-aye, captain!’ and falls off the plank. She learns about friends with benefits with a guy who calls out his ex’s name in bed and keep his socks on. She sings Enrique Iglesias at karaoke, followed by an extra-large serving of fries.

Grace might be learning to live again but that doesn’t mean she’s opening her heart again… Or does it?

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Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?

Sure, my bedroom gets lots of action. It’s called snoring.

Will and I didn’t have a clue what we were signing up for when we became parents, There’s loads we weren’t warned about:

  1. You’ll spend more time spooning your child’s cuddly donkey than your own boyfriend.
  2. Communication will be via post-it notes on the fridge, mainly telling him to buy more milk.
  3. If you make the mistake of going to a nightclub you’ll nod off, drool, and be woken up by an angry bouncer.
  4. In the middle of the night you’ll be begging Siri for advice on getting your baby to sleep. (Whale music doesn’t work.)
  5. Sex is something that happened in another dimension.

At least I’ve got Will. Our old life – festivals, sambuca shots, an actual sex life – might be a distant memory but we can get through anything together.

At least that’s what I thought… Until, one day, the unthinkable happens and everything changes. But I love Will, and he loves me, so we can get through anything. Right?

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Can I Give My Husband Back?

It’s normal to prefer getting a filling at the dentist’s to spending time with your husband, right?

I thought I was sorted on the life front. I was a heart surgeon with a loving partner and two gorgeous little girls. Except my husband’s version of ‘loving’ is lying, cheating and sleeping his way around London. Which means I definitely deserve a refund.

Unfortunately, moving on isn’t that simple. Just because I know how to operate on a heart doesn’t mean I know how to fix my broken one. Plus, I lost the receipt for him years ago so I’m definitely getting short changed.

But now I’m single, am I ready to mingle? There are a few minor issues:

1) The last time I went on a date double denim was in fashion and my eyebrows were horrendously overplucked.

2) Men wear stupidly skinny jeans now.

3) I don’t know how to use dating apps but at least I don’t have to get changed out of my pyjamas.

4) Sometimes the most promising thing you have in common with a guy is a shared love of prawns.

5) I don’t know whether to open a date with ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ or ‘hey’ and once I ended up saying ‘howdy’.

Everything happens for a reason, they say. There’s plenty more fish in the sea. But what happens when everything falls apart and you haven’t got a clue how to go fishing?

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Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?

It’s normal for your washing machine to get more action than you, right?

I wake up, bleary-eyed.

It’s been two years, six months and three hours since I last shaved my legs, and the llama-patterned knickers I’m wearing have seen better days.

We have seven minutes before the kids wake up, and my husband shuffles closer. ‘Ouch,’ he says, a piece of Lego sticking into his back.

Then, a light comes on in the landing. Small footsteps creep down the stairs. A little voice screams, ‘IS SOMEONE COMING TO MAKE BREAKFAST?!’

All hope of having some ‘alone time’ is replaced with wondering if we’ve run out of Cheerios, thinking about the overflowing laundry, and remembering that I forgot to take out the recycling. Again.

Just a typical Monday morning for the Morton family…

Except today, when I go downstairs in my dressing gown, I find something. Something belonging to my husband. Something that definitely wasn’t in the wedding vows. And it’s either going to make us… or break us.

An utterly hilarious and unmissable novel for anyone who has ever felt like they spend more time washing the dishes than getting lucky. Fans of Why Mummy Drinks and The Unmumsy Mum, and rom-coms by Sophie Ranald and Sophie Kinsella, will ugly laugh at this gloriously funny and relatable read.

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